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IMPERIAL BRITAIN 



THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY 
AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE 

Home Reading Department of Chautauqua Institution 
Founded in 1878 

This volume is part of a system of home reading, the essential 
features of which are : 

1. A Definite Course covering four years, and including 

History, Literature, Art, Travel, Science, etc. 

(A reader may enroll for only one year.) No examina- 
tions. 

2. Specified Volumes approved by the Councillors. Many 

of the books are specially prepared for the purpose. 

3. Allotment of Time. The reading is apportioned by the 

week and month. 

4. Current Topics, week by week in one of the foremost 

publications of America, The Independent. 

5. A Monthly Bulletin, The Round Table, giving helps 

and hints for home study, circle programs, notes from 
the field, teaching and illustrative material. 

6. A Question Book, serving as the outline of a written 

report on each year's reading, should the individual 
choose to make such. 

7. Individual Readers, no matter how isolated, may have 

all the privileges. 

8. Local Circles may be formed by three or more members 

for mutual aid and encouragement. 

9. The Time Required is no more than the average person 

wastes in disconnected, desultory reading. \^ 

10. Certificates are granted each year and a diploma at the 
end of four years to all who complete the course. 

The annual cost is $5 for books, The Independent, The 
Round Table, enrollment, and all necessary helps. For full 
information address 

CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION 
CHAUTAUQUA, N. Y. 



BY 
CECIL FAIRFIELD LAVELL 

GRINNELL COLLEGE 

AND 
CHARLES EDWARD PAYNE 

GRINNELL COLLEGE k 




CHAUTAUQUA, NEW YORK 
MCMXV1II 






COPYRIGHT, 1918 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1918. 



£ 49 



TO 
THE MEN IN KHAKI 



PREFACE 

Never has there been a time when the British Empire 
and its history has had the significance for thinking Amer- 
icans that it has to-day. For, in the words of Sir Charles 
Dilke, " If the English race has a mission in the world it 
is surely this, to prevent peace on earth from depending 
on the verdict of a single man." In the days of Napo- 
leon England saved Europe and civilization from such a 
catastrophe. To-day, not only have millions of Britons 
taken the field against German autocracy, but the British 
navy, British finance, British industry, have made possible 
the heroic and sustained resistance of France and Belgium 
to the formidable power which threatens to overwhelm 
them. And to-day, it may be added, it is the British 
fleet which makes possible the pouring of millions of 
Americans across the Atlantic resolved that government 
of, for and by the people shall not perish from the earth. 
But great as has been the significance of Britain in 
the war, she seems likely to be even more significant in 
the work of reconstruction that must follow. Through 
the leadership of Lloyd George, the influence of organized 
labor, the encouragement and support of President Wil- 



vi PREFACE 

son, Britain has more and more clearly defined her pur- 
poses along democratic lines until to-day the officially 
announced aims of Britain and America are practically 
identical. These two countries will emerge from the 
conflict the least exhausted of all the combatants; they 
have the same hopes and plans for the future; and on 
them must now rest the main burden of making possible 
the realization of those ideals which Britons and Ameri- 
cans alike have accepted, — self-determination, the sanc- 
tity of treaties, the elimination of war, a League of Peace. 
Most significant of all, the British Empire constitutes 
in itself a model that embodies these ideals, a model after 
which a world organization can be patterned. It is itself 
a world embracing almost all varieties of race and creed, 
almost every stage of culture and progress, almost every 
variety of conflicting economic interest, all bound together 
in a loose, elastic organization in which no part is ex- 
ploited for the benefit of another, in which each part can 
develop its own peculiar character, in which every member 
has all the autonomy it is capable of exercising, and 
throughout which a spirit of justice and fair play prevails. 
The British Empire to-day is in great part a common- 
wealth of free, self-governing nations, bound together 
by ties of sentiment unaided by any elaborate machinery 
of government. It reaches its decisions through no for- 
mal body, no autocratic sovereign or bureaucracy, but 



PREFACE vii 

through the negotiations and conferences of High Com- 
missioners and Prime Ministers. Yet this loose organ- 
ization under the leadership of the United Kingdom has 
succeeded in establishing the Pax Britannica throughout 
one quarter of the world, in impressing its members with 
a sense of just treatment, and in binding them to the 
Empire with ties of loyalty and affection which the shock 
of this war has served only to strengthen. 

If one quarter can be so organized for the establish- 
ment of peace, freedom, and justice, why not the whole? 
Of course the parallel does not hold at all points, for the 
British Empire was created by the conquests of a single 
dominant race. But it is sufficiently close to be not only 
an encouragement but a model, and the accumulated po- 
litical and legal experience of the British in building up 
this vast structure, the greatest political achievement of 
mankind, cannot but be of immense value. All that is 
needed is the desire, and after the war the desire will be 
present, dynamic in form and irresistible in proportions. 
The gigantic character of the struggle has brought home 
to the race the horror, folly and iniquity of war as they 
have never been realized before. Millions of women are 
asking why they should have had to lose their loved ones ; 
millions of men will wonder why they should go through 
the rest of life maimed, weakened and shattered. These 
griefs and questions will constitute a soil on which may 



viii PREFACE 

be reared a stately structure of which the poets and philos- 
ophers and statesmen of all time have dreamed, a world 
commonwealth. 

But for such a commonwealth no ordinary pattern will 
serve. In proposing that British experience and British 
methods of organization should be utilized there is no 
desire to emulate Germany and impose the system or 
institutions of one country on any other. There has been 
far too much of national egoism already, and the world 
is paying the price. As Goethe once said, " Above the 
nations is humanity." Many nations, not excluding the 
German, have surpassed the British in many and various 
ways, and civilization is all the richer for it. But the 
British, following no preconceived plan, have found a 
way in which nations of infinite variety may yet combine 
in a friendly and harmonious federation. They have 
proved themselves the most politically minded and most 
politically gifted of all races, not only by making Britain 
the mother of Parliaments, but by the discovery that 
rigidity, uniformity and centralization do not supply the 
secrets of political union. In spite of many blunders and 
some crimes they have constructed the greatest and on 
the whole the most satisfactory political organization the 
world has yet known, and it is their offshoot, the United 
States, that has carried the federal idea to its fullest 
realization. Surely it is the better part of wisdom for 



PREFACE ix 

the world to utilize and profit by British experience and 
British success just as it has accepted the spiritual herit- 
age of the Hebrews, the culture of the Greeks, and the 
legal and political achievements of the Romans. 

Should this book give any of its readers a better under- 
standing of the forces, motives and aims that have made 
the British Empire possible and of the light that it throws 
on the problem of world organization, it will have an- 
swered the purpose of its authors. 

The chapters on the American Revolution and the 
Great War have been written by Mr. Payne. As the 
events of these two movements are familiar to American 
readers no attempt has been made to give a narrative 
account, but simply to discuss their significant aspects. 
The remainder of the book has been written by Mr. 
Lavell. The authors have, however, collaborated 
throughout, and are agreed in point of view and inter- 
pretation. 

C. F. L. 
C. E. P. 

Grinnell, Iowa, 
May 7, 1918. 



LIST OF MAPS 

FACING 
PAGE 

The America of Wolfe and Montcalm 67 

Southern India in 175 i 91 

Australasia, 1770-1840 140 

Africa in 191 8: The Cape to Cairo Railroad . . .180 

Canada in 191 8: Provincial and Territorial Divi- 
sions 212 

The Indian Empire . . ... 248 



THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION 

Twice since the Norman Conquest has the little coun- 
try of England been the center of an empire : once when 
Henry II of England was at the same time master of half 
France ; and now again when the Union Jack or the red 
ensign flies over cities and continents of which Henry 
Plantagenet never dreamed. Yet to use the same word 
to describe both of these empires seems unfortunate. In- 
deed, the use of the word " empire " is questionable in 
either case,— only to be sanctioned because we seem to 
have no other word that will quite answer the purpose. 
For " empire " is a Roman word. Its use seems to imply 
in some way absolute power, — the centralization which 
was so fundamentally characteristic of Rome. Yet the 
feudal empire of Henry II, so far from being centralized, 
was a mere bundle of separate lordships, thrown together 
by the accidents of conquest, marriage, and divorce. It 
was dashed to pieces in the reign of John, built again by 
Edward III, torn apart once more in the latter years of 



2 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

the fourteenth century, put together in a structure of sur- 
passing glory by Henry V, and finally destroyed in the 
reign of his son. Through it all, for these three hundred 
years, England's own well-being and growth were some- 
thing entirely apart from her connection with these other 
possessions of her king; the bond that united them had no 
root in national life. And if there is more organic unity 
in the British Empire of to-day, — if there is in it, indeed, 
a very powerful and living organic unity, — yet there is as 
little centralization as there was in the days of Henry 
II. So if we use the word " empire," as we must, let us 
at least remember that the old significance of the Roman 
word imperium has largely departed. 

The empire of Henry II was, we have said, the loose, 
feudal union of half France with England. But in it the 
English destiny or the English national character was 
scarcely involved at all. It was not the genius of Eng- 
lishmen that built up the feudal empire; it was feudal cus- 
tom and the ability of half a dozen men to whom the Eng- 
lish tongue was an abomination. To the Norman kings 
England was a mere appendage to their continental do- 
mains, valued only for her money and her archers. Eng- 
land's influence was not materially extended by the power 
of her rulers; she was rather influenced by France than 
France by England. So that from the landing of the 



THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION 3 

Jutes in 449 until the close of the Hundred Years' War in 
1453, and of the Wars of the Roses in 1485, England 
was simply England, not even Great Britain, with no po- 
litical interest outside her borders except a feudal and dy- 
nastic interest which affected only a foreign king and his 
military aristocracy. Her trade was largely local, across 
the narrow seas. Her seamen were many and daring, it 
is true, but from the political point of view they were in 
the background. The sea-power and imperial ambitions 
of Venice and Genoa in the south, of the Hanseatic 
League in the north, stirred as yet neither jealousy nor 
emulation in the bosoms of the slow-moving islanders. 

But if the fifteenth century English were indifferent to 
seapower, little inclined to maritime enterprise, and quite 
without imperial ambitions, they and their fathers had un- 
wittingly laid a solid foundation for national greatness. 
By slow degrees, with many moments of discouragement 
and reaction, there had been crystallizing the potent ideals 
of liberty and nationality without which the England that 
we know, the free mother of free states, could never have 
existed. In the old days before the Norman Conquest 
villagers and townsmen had met in their town meetings to 
deal with town affairs, had elected representatives to meet 
with other townsmen of the "hundred," and to meet in 
the still larger " folkmoot " of the shire. That is to say, 



4 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

they had been accustomed to the idea and practice of rep- 
resentative government. The larger affairs of the king- 
dom as a whole were indeed in the hands of the lords who 
met in their Witanagemot, i.e., the assembly of the wise, 
the nobles and clerics of greater power and larger grasp 
of affairs than could be claimed by the humbler mer- 
chants, craftsmen and agriculturists who made up the 
great mass of the population. Government of the peo- 
ple was still a thing of the future ; but the germ of English 
liberty was clearly present in the England of Alfred and 
of Edward the Confessor. 

This germ was not only never smothered out by the 
Norman kings: it was positively encouraged. William 
the Conqueror, William Rufus, Henry I and Henry II 
saw clearly that the great obstacle to the realization of 
their ambitious plans for consolidation and centralization 
was not the people but the great lords. The kings, intent 
on power, the people, anxious for protection against 
brutal and lawless barons, had no vision of the possibili- 
ties of the future. They became allies only to avert a 
common danger, not to realize a national or democratic 
ideal. But between them they built up a steadily growing 
political unity and a steadily growing national conscious- 
ness, until at last the barons, seeing that they could not 
hold their own against the alliance of king and people, 



THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION 5 

seized a golden opportunity to do a really great thing. 
For after the great Norman and Angevin kings came King 
John, enemy of lords and commons, enemy of God and 
man. The invincible alliance was broken by the blind 
wickedness of John; and the barons in sudden inspiration 
joined the troubled and oppressed people in wresting from 
the king the great charter. To them it was merely a 
winning move in their play for power. But the Charter 
signed at Runnymede in 12 15, feudal document as it was, 
saw the birth of the English nation. Only the birth, in- 
deed, not adolescence or conscious maturity. Yet Magna 
Carta was still an event of tremendous significance. 1 And 
it was confirmed fifty years later when Simon de Mont- 
fort, Earl of Leicester and premier baron of England, 
called on the people for aid in his struggle against John's 
son, and summoned representatives of the towns to sit side 
by side with the lords in the first house of Commons. 

1 The following clauses of Magna Carta are the most famous: 

12. No scutage or aid (feudal taxes) shall be imposed in our kingdom 
unless by the general council of our kingdom, etc., etc. 

39. No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed 
or banished or in any way destroyed . . . unless by the lawful judgment 
of his peers or by the law of the land. 

60. All the aforesaid customs and liberties which we have granted to be 
holden in our kingdom, as much as it belongs to us, all people of our 
kingdom, as well clergy as laity, shall observe, as far as they are con- 
cerned, towards their dependents. 

Thus c. 12 laid down the principle, afterwards made definite and com- 
prehensive, that the king was to have no independent power to levy 
taxes; c. 39 asserted the personal liberty of free Englishmen; c. 60 illus- 



6 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

This first representative national assembly was, it is 
true, called by a rebel. Strictly speaking, it was illegal. 
But behind it was a force that could no longer be ignored. 
King and people had been invincible in restraining the law- 
less ferocity of the barons. Now the barons had been at 
least partly tamed, and barons and people were allied to 
restrain the lawlessness of the throne. The great king 
Edward I, still without any vision of the future and seeing 
only the advantage of town representation for taxing pur- 
poses, bowed to the inevitable. In 1295 he quietly fol- 
lowed the precedent created by de Montfort thirty years 
before, and thereafter the Parliament of England was 
composed of lords, knights, and representatives of the 
towns. Through the fourteenth century the national as- 
sembly, soon separated into two houses — Lords and 
Commons — grew in power, tightened its grasp on the 
two essential rights of legislation and taxation, interfered 
at critical moments with even the administration, gave its 
support to the deposition of two kings, asserted the rights 
of the English Church against what seemed the undue 
claims of the Papacy, grappled with economic difficulties, 
and made itself bit by bit the controlling power of the 
kingdom. The king was still the executive chief, and 

trates the fact that while it was the barons who compelled John to sign 
the Charter they were at least dimly aware that they were acting not only 
for themselves but for the people at large. 



THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION 7 

able kings like Edward I, Edward III, and Henry V 
wielded a still potent scepter. But no king successfully 
defied Parliament during the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 
turies. 

The basis of English liberty seemed solidly laid. But 
while the towns were growing in wealth and conse- 
quence, and while merchants, craftsmen and sailors were 
developing economic security, intelligence, self-confi- 
dence, pride, imagination, courage, capacity to act to- 
gether, — all of the things that go to make up the stuff 
of self-government,- — yet hitherto they had allowed the 
lords to assume the leadership. The alliance between 
them was tacit but firm, and it held against all shocks. 
But in the main it was recognized that in politics and 
war the lords were more efficient than the representatives 
of the towns, and they were allowed to take the initia- 
tive. The people were indeed but restless and indiffer- 
ent students of the great art of government. Their 
place in Parliament seemed often a burden rather than 
a privilege. As long as their individual rights were re- 
spected they were content to let others have the cares 
and responsibilities of guiding the ship of state. Then 
in the fifteenth century came the Wars of the Roses. 
The nobles, already decimated by the long war with 
France, dashed themselves to pieces in the conflict of fac- 



8 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

tions. 1 And when Henry VII came to the throne after 
his victory over Richard of York on Bosworth Field 
( 1485 ) the Parliament faced a crisis of which it was quite 
unconscious. The House of Lords under the new ruler 
was filled with nobles of his creation. Only a fragment 
of the old baronage was left. The Commons at last had 
to stand on their own feet or lose their hard-won liberties. 
So the sixteenth century saw a national readjustment. 
The question that time had to answer was whether the 
English people had learned the lesson of self-govern- 
ment. And for a time it was difficult to see what the 
answer would be. Henry VII and Henry VIII were 
more absolute, apparently, than Henry II or Edward 
I or Henry V had ever been. The people, welcoming 
with relief an era of peace, looked placidly. on while 
the king built up a great power on the ruins of feudal- 
ism. England seemed to be quietly becoming an absolute 
monarchy. But in reality the people were unconsciously 
adjusting themselves to the situation, showinglittle reali- 
zation of their danger and little disposition to take the 
initiative, but never relaxing their stubborn grip on essen- 

1 The Hundred Years' War, in which the kings of England sought not 
only to regain and hold their old dominion over Normandy, Anjou and 
Aquitaine but to seize the crown of France, began about 1340 and ended 
when the French took Bordeaux in 1453. The Wars of the Roses, between 
the rival houses of York and Lancaster, began about 1460 and ended with 
the victory of Henry of Richmond at Bosworth in 1485. 



THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION 9 

tials. Indeed even at the height of the Tudor despotism 
there were signs that the lessons of the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries had not been utterly thrown away. 
Interest in national affairs was steadily growing stronger, 
quickened by the spread of Protestantism and the fear of 
Spain. And when the high-spirited Elizabeth came to 
the throne of her father, her brother and her sister, she 
faced a nation that was nearly ready to graduate after 
its long schooling. She found Parliament and people 
ready indeed to give her love and honor, willing to accord 
her much power in the exercise of her high duties, but un- 
yielding as iron when their cherished liberties were 
menaced. Again and again the proud Queen sought 
angrily to assert her independent sovereignty; again and 
again she had to bow before the courteous obstinacy of 
Parliament. When she died in 1603 the nation was well 
awake, uncertain of its powers, unused to united action, 
unwilling to move other than slowly, cautiously, circum- 
spectly, but still pulsing with a new and vast consciousness 
of strength and with new, vague ambitions of dazzling 
splendor. 

For the sixteenth century had brought a steadily in- 
creasing responsiveness to the thrill of new intellectual 
life which was shaking Europe. The Renaissance in 
Italy had reached its height before the century opened, 



io IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

and had begun to send abroad impulses of spiritual quick- 
ening that soon reached England through men like Colet, 
Erasmus and Thomas More. At the same time there 
came other influences just as disturbing. There were 
rumors of the advancing power of the Turks, of the clos- 
ing up the old trade routes to Asia by way of Constanti- 
nople, Syria, and Egypt, and — far more amazing — the 
opening of a new route to the east by Diaz and Vasco da 
Gama around the Cape of Good Hope. Portugal leaped 
into fame and wealth with the commerce now made pos- 
sible by her navigators; Venice and Genoa faced slow ruin 
with the passing of the greatness of the Mediterranean 
highway; and all sea-faring peoples felt some stirring 
of the blood at the thought of the rich reward that had 
followed the enterprise of a handful of bold sailors. But 
eclipsing all other news came the tremendous tidings of 
the crossing of the Atlantic. All too late did Henry VII 
send out John and Sebastian Cabot to bring England 
some of the advantage of this short cut to India — as 
every one deemed was the significance of the discovery of 
Columbus. But no effort could make Newfoundland or 
Cape Breton or Labrador yield the rich spoil that soon 
flowed to Spain from the mines of Mexico and Peru. As 
Italy had led in the revival of learning, Portugal and 
Spain had led in the discovery of new worlds, and by the 



THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION n 

time the bewildered minds of English statesmen and 
sailors had adjusted themselves to the vast changes 
wrought in a single generation, the chance of sharing in 
the trade of Asia or the wealth of America seemed for- 
ever lost. The fruits of the Renaissance could be 
learned. The dying torch of Italy could touch the eager 
lamp of England's genius, and inspire a burst of intel- 
lectual glory in the northern islands even more splendid 
than Florence herself had seen in the days of Lorenzo. 
But the fruits of maritime enterprise could not so easily 
be transferred. Spain and Portugal, first in the field, 
rejoiced and waxed fat in a flood of wealth out of all pro- 
portion to the energy expended. The peoples of the 
north seemed to be hopelessly left behind. 

It must be remembered that no one, up to the middle 
of the sixteenth century at any rate, had thought of 
planting a colony in our modern sense of the word. The 
possibility of such a development as was later seen in the 
English colonies of America, Australia or South Africa 
had not occurred to the wildest dreamer. The prize of 
Spain in her own eyes was not the opportunity to plant 
and develop new Spains overseas, but that of seizing a 
lucrative trade and exploiting a vast, helpless, and 
wealthy possession. And in this new territory competi- 
tion was by no means to be permitted. The custom fol- 



12 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

lowed by all European countries of making indefinitely 
large claims on the strength of sighting a single stretch 
of coast meant that Spain claimed the whole of the West 
Indies and Central and South America — with the sole 
exception of the Portuguese possession of Brazil — as 
one vast preserve. Not only was this whole territory an- 
nexed to the Spanish crown, but the wealth that came 
from it was a monopoly. Absurd as the idea seems to 
us, moreover, it was in accord with the notions of the 
time, and was accepted as right and normal by the Eng- 
lish themselves. But no body of law, and no power of 
custom could so cancel the primary instincts of human 
nature that sailors and traders of all nations would not 
look somewhat wistfully at the gigantic prize that was 
making Spain the wealthiest and most powerful state in 
Europe. Every new rumor of the riches of Mexico and 
Peru made it more certain that little excuse would be 
needed to bring eager adventurers to the Spanish Main 
to snatch such crumbs of the great feast as Providence, 
cunning, or force might give them. Marvelous tales 
came with every western breeze to draw men toward the 
horizon beyond which lay America. 

The inevitable conflict began early. Tn November, 
15 19, Cortez entered the City of Mexico for the first 
time, and when the conquest was completed two great 



THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION 13 

treasure ships were dispatched to Spain as an earnest of 
what was coming. France and Spain were at war just 
then, and a Florentine captain named Verazzani in the 
service of France captured those treasure ships near 
the Azores. So Europe learned at the same time both 
the fabulous wealth of Spanish America and the ease 
with which a share of it could be obtained. France ac- 
cordingly followed up Verazzani's success with some de- 
gree of vigor, but England still waited,— partly because 
her conservative instincts forbade her to make a new 
movement too hurriedly, and partly because during a 
great part of the sixteenth century she was Spain's ally. 
Then the Protestant revolution came to sow discord. 
The Marian persecution and the acute danger for a time 
that England might be made by Mary and Philip II a 
mere province of Spain awakened in the minds of Eng- 
lishmen an active hatred of the Spaniards. And with 
the accession of the Protestant Elizabeth in 1558 the two 
countries began definitely to drift into a relation in which 
a small cause might precipitate a bitter and relentless 
war. The English sailors began to do more than cast 
greedy looks toward the Spanish Main. Ship after ship 
crossed the Atlantic to defy the monopoly by securing 
some of the trade; and when traders were punished as 
smugglers and pirates their trade became after a time 



i 4 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

actual piracy, on the ancient principle that one may as 
well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. So national and 
racial a character did this unique kind of piracy assume, 
moreover, that an Englishman and a Spaniard came to 
regard one another as inevitable and invariable enemies, 
and the religious difference between them, aided by the 
Inquisition, added fierce fuel to their hatred. Yet for 
many years there was no open war. Neither Philip II 
nor Elizabeth wanted war, and both struggled against 
fate to preserve at least a nominal peace. War came 
only when Drake's great voyage of 1577-80 made it in- 
evitable. Elizabeth had then to choose between England 
and Spain, for peace and good-will with the one meant 
war with the other. 

So that in the third quarter of the sixteenth century 
England stood at the fork of the roads. Still far from 
anything like democracy, she had yet built a firm founda- 
tion for a free nationality that was rapidly becoming con- 
scious. The intellectual vigor that was to make the age 
of Elizabeth one of the most brilliant in the annals of 
literature was joined to a proud and exuberant patriotism. 
Less than a century later this new national spirit was to 
turn in fierce resentment against the monarchy that sought 
to chain it in the name of divine right, and in civil war and 
revolution was to end forever the debate between kingly 



THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION 15 

power and national freedom. But Elizabeth's tact post- 
poned the conflict, and in her day the energy of English- 
men was turned not so much to politics as to literature 
and adventure. Indeed even the literature of the age 
was a literature of action, of romance, and of aspiration. 
Shakespeare and Drake alike are the interpreters of an 
England unknown to Henry II and to de Montfort, a 
dynamic England which they had helped to make but 
which had grown far beyond their planning. She stood 
now at the threshold of a new era. Ahead of her lay 
the glory and the peril of empire. 



II 

THE COMING OF SEA-POWER 

When English sailors first began to feel the lure of the 
far horizon there were two enterprises that attracted 
them with peculiar power. One was the quest of the 
northwest passage to the Indies, and one was the trade 
of the Spanish Main. The former was to attract Eng- 
lish explorers for three centuries and was to immortalize 
some of the most notable names in the annals of British 
seamanship. The latter had all the fascination of ad- 
venture, conflict, and unguessable turns of chance. Be- 
tween them, they were the school of Elizabethan seamen. 
In the polar seas, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, 
Englishmen learned the lessons that were to stand them 
in good stead in 1588 and were ultimately to make them 
the first among sea-faring peoples. So that, roughly 
speaking, the reign of Elizabeth marks the beginning of 
England's sea-power; and if we open at random the 
pages of " Hakluyt's Voyages " we may obtain a glimpse 
into the training school. 

On the eighth of June, 1576, Martin Frobisher left 

16 



THE COMING OF SEA-POWER 17 

Deptford with two small barks (25 and 20 tons), the 
Gabriel and the Michael, and a pinnace of 10 tons, to 
seek in the northwest a nearer passage to Cathay than'by 
the Cape of Good Hope or the Straits of Magellan. On 
the nth of July " he had sight of a high and ragged 
land " — probably Greenland—" but durst not approach 
the same by reason of the great store of ice that lay 
along the coast and the great mists that troubled them 
not a little." Not far from here he lost the pinnace and 
was deserted by the Michael, but " notwithstanding these 
discomforts the worthy captain, although his mast was 
sprung and his topmast blown overboard with extreme 
foul weather, continued his course towards the northwest, 
knowing that the sea at length must needs have an end- 
ing." So he passed on and did at length sight two great 
forelands, with a great open passage between them, which 
he entered, and sailed above fifty leagues, believing that 
he had Asia on his right hand and America on his left. 

After some time " he went ashore and found signs 
where fire had been made. He saw mighty deer . . . 
which ran at him: and hardly he escaped with his 
life in a narrow way, where he was fain to use defense 
and policy to save his life. In this place he saw and per- 
ceived sundry token of the peoples resorting thither. 
And being ashore upon the top of a hill, he per- 



1 8 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

ceived a number of small things floating in the sea afar 
off, which he supposed to be porpoises, or seals, or some 
strange kind of fish; but coming nearer, he discovered 
them to be men in small boats made of leather." These 
were a troop of Esquimaux, who after nearly taking the 
captain himself, did some trading with the sailors and 
by treachery captured five of them. After this they kept 
away from the ships, but one was taken by a stratagem 
and brought back to England. So " with this new prey, 
which was a sufficient witness of the Captain's far and 
tedious travel towards the unknown parts of the world 
. . . the said Captain Frobisher returned homeward and 
arrived in England the second of October following. 
Thence he came to London, where he was highly com- 
mended of all men for his great and notable attempt, but 
specially famous for the great hope he brought of the 
passage to Cathay." Besides the unfortunate native 
there was by chance brought back a black stone — really 
iron pyrites — which certain refiners pronounced to be 
rich in gold. Thereafter it was gold, not the northwest 
passage, which formed the chief attraction to the deso- 
late region of the north. In Frobisher's second voyage 
200 tons and in the third 1,700 tons of the stuff were 
brought with great labor to England to the sore loss of 
those who had borne the expense of the enterprise. 



THE COMING OF SEA-POWER 19 

But the interest of it all to us is not so much the success 
or ill success of these voyages. It is the persistent and 
purposeful daring, the awakening interest in a world wider 
than England, the determination against all obstacles to 
search the untried and immense posssibilities of the New 
World. Every sentence of the old sailor narratives as- 
sures us that the narrowness, the pettiness, the morbid in- 
terest in unreal things, of the Middle Ages have passed 
away. It is like breathing in a draught of fresh sea air 
to see again the little ships of England — struggling 
against the terrors and dangers of the north, stemming 
and striking great rocks of ice, compassed about with 
floes and bergs, and so driven by tempests against the 
crystal reefs that " planks of timber of more than three 
inches thick by the surging of the sea with the ice were 
shivered and cut in sunder." 

To these northern voyagers the elements themselves 
were the most formidable foes. But to the all-expecting 
imaginations of the Elizabethan mariners there was even 
more terror in the strange beasts and devils of the new 
seas. An iceberg was an iceberg — dangerous enough 
but avoidable. But what of the strange monster that 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert saw " swimming or rather slid- 
ing upon the water off the coast of Labrador, — a monster 
like a lion in shape, hair and color, which passed along 



2o IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

turning his head to and fro, yawning and gaping wide 
with ugly demonstration of long teeth and glaring eyes, 
and which coming right against the ship sent forth a hor- 
rible voice, roaring and bellowing as doth a lion"? 
Might not this be the devil himself? And every voyager 
had to face beasts equally strange and equally invested 
with the halo of marvel that belonged to the newly dis- 
covered regions, — serpents with three heads, monsters 
in the shape and color of men who rose from the sea and 
might bring on many days of foul weather, and evil 
creatures such as the " monstrous venemous worme " en- 
countered by the companions of Hawkins, " with two 
heads and a body as bigge as a man's arme, whose blood 
made the sword that cut him asunder as black as ink." 

Fearsome tales, surely. And yet these encounters with 
beasts and devils are after all only incidents. Even the 
conflicts with storms, with heat, and with cold were not 
the epoch-making ones of the age, significant as they are 
of its spirit. The great battles of the English were with a 
power more cruel and far more hated than ice, heat, 
storms, or savage monsters. The fierce and withering 
grip of Spain and the Inquisition on the wealthiest part 
of the New World and on the empire of the sea still 
remained to be matched and shaken before England's 
introduction to her new future could be complete. 



THE COMING OF SEA-POWER 21 

In the summer of 1568 John Hawkins, having accom- 
plished a profitable bit of trade in negroes with those 
of the Spaniards who were willing to defy their own law 
for the sake of profit, headed northwest from the Gulf 
of Mexico intending to make for England. It was his 
third voyage, and he was well known in both England 
and Spain. It had been his avowed practice to simply 
disregard the Spanish laws as to trade, and since his liv- 
ing merchandise was badly needed for heavy labor by the 
Spanish mine owners and planters, he had driven a 
profitable business. In dining with the Spanish ambassa- 
dor, after his second voyage, he had quite coolly declared 
his intention of visiting the African coast and the Indies 
again. And so he did; but as might be expected, this 
cool violation of Spanish law aroused irritation at the 
court of Philip II, and orders were sent out to treat 
Hawkins as an open enemy if the opportunity occurred. 
Now it happened that on this very trip, as the English 
ships passed by the west end of Cuba, heavy storms came 
upon them and, being driven far into the Gulf and failing 
to find any other harbor, they took refuge in the port 
of Vera Cruz, guarded by the castle of San Juan de Ullua. 
Here to their surprise they found twelve ships — part 
of the annual silver fleet for Spain — which were await- 
ing there the rest of the fleet and its armed convoy. 



22 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Hawkins was a trader, not either a pirate or an enemy 
of the Spaniards. He did not touch the prize before him 
accordingly, but sent word of his arrival to the Spanish 
Council at Mexico, and asked permission to remain in 
the harbor to refit. But, says Hawkins, " the mes- 
sage being sent away the sixteenth of September at night, 
being the very day of our arrival, in the next morning, 
which was the seventeenth day of the same month, we 
saw open off the haven thirteen great ships. And under- 
standing them to be the fleet of Spain I sent immediately to 
advise the general of the fleet of my being there : giving 
him to understand that, before I would suffer them to 
enter the port, there should some orders of conditions pass 
between us for our safe being there, and maintenance of 
peace." 

Now the harbor was so guarded by an island that the 
English ships in possession could easily keep out an enemy 
five times as strong. But the English admiral was torn 
between two difficulties. If he prevented the Spanish 
fleet entering, they must inevitably be shipwrecked by the 
next storm from the north. In view of the peace exist- 
ing between the two countries — peace which Elizabeth 
was very anxious to maintain — such a disaster would be 
a very grave matter and would probably mean trouble 
from the Queen. On the other hand, if entrance were 



THE COMING OF SEA-POWER 23 

permitted, there was the danger of treachery. At last 
Hawkins resolved on the more generous course, and giv- 
ing the Spaniards the benefit of the doubt he made a 
convention, exchanged hostages and allowed them to come 



in. 



All was apparently satisfactory for a time, and the Eng- 
lish sailors set to work busily to repair their ships. It 
was Monday, the twentieth of September, when the Span- 
ish fleet entered the port. On Thursday morning the 
English noticed a suspicious shifting and embarking of 
men going on, and a stealthy clearing of the ships and 
arrangement of ordnance which was uncalled for on any 
peaceful pretext. Remonstrance first brought polite as- 
surances, but at last the mine was sprung. On all sides 
the English were attacked, and in most cases were taken 
utterly by surprise. The men on shore were nearly all 
killed at once without mercy. The largest of the Eng- 
lish ships was attacked by three Spaniards; each of the 
others was terribly outnumbered, and what with the odds 
and the surprise, and the Spanish command of great 
ordnance on shore, the English were barely able to hold 
their own. After an hour's fight three of the enemy's 
ships were burned and sunk, and the battle eased off 
somewhat; but then fire ships were sent down upon Haw- 
kins' battered vessels, and those that were able cut loose 



24 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

and put to sea as best they might, — two large ships, the 
Jesus and the Minion, the former of which was so in- 
jured that she had to be abandoned soon after, and the 
smaller Judith, commanded by Francis Drake. Of the 
sufferings of the crews of these, as without sufficient pro- 
visions, with battered and half rigged ships, they wan- 
dered in an unknown sea, we cannot speak here. Those 
who have access to " Hakluyt's Voyages " may read of 
them as told by two seamen, Phillips and Job Hartop, and 
by Hawkins himself in his narrative of this disastrous 
third voyage. But disastrous as the incident at San Juan 
de Ullua was to the English, it was — as has been well 
observed — even more disastrous to the Spaniards. For 
it brought them the bitter and undying enmity, not only of 
Hawkins, but also of the young captain of the Judith — 
Francis Drake. 

Let us now move forward a few years. In 1 5 7 1 Drake 
was in the West Indian seas engaged in real piracy on his 
own account. Ships were captured, treasure was seized 
and hidden, and investigations made into the operations 
by which the silver and gold of Peru was conveyed to 
Spain. He found that Panama was the focus on the 
Pacific side of the Isthmus, and that the treasure was 
thence carried across the mountain ridge to Nombre de 
Dios, where it was shipped home. In May, 1572, with 



THE COMING OF SEA-POWER 25 

two ships and material for three pinnaces, the daring 
captain set sail from Plymouth to attack the richest spot 
on the Spanish Main. On reaching a group of islands 
near their destination he found that Nombre de Dios had 
recently been strongly fortified against a possible attack 
of the Maroons, — a formidable mixed negro and In- 
dian race, deadly enemies of the Spaniards and treated 
by them like wild beasts. But he resolved to try his 
fortune. With seventy-three men he attacked the town 
on its coast side, drove the redoubtable Spanish soldiery 
out of the opposite gate, refused to touch three hundred 
and sixty tons of silver that were ready to be shipped in 
order to devote undivided attention to the stores of pearls 
and gold, and finally withdrew from the panic-stricken 
town only when he himself fell wounded. In spite of 
remonstrances the sailors bore their commander back to 
the boats. On the way out of the bay a wine ship was 
captured, and with her cargo to console them for their 
retreat the English took up their quarters on the island 
where the town had its gardens and poultry yards. Here 
they rested and looked after the wounded while their 
leader formed new plans. 

With very little delay all necessary repairing was done, 
and the little squadron went on its way in search of 
more adventures. At Carthagena several prizes were 



26 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

taken, but the spread of the news from Nombre de Dios 
made surprises difficult, and Drake resolved to fall back 
on his little pinnaces and carry on his depredations on 
shore and up the rivers. For this it was necessary to 
learn the country, and establish firm alliance with the Ma- 
roons, which took time; so during the next month the 
rovers had to trust to their negro allies and an occasional 
ship for supplies, while they sustained various attacks 
from the Spaniards, and from a more dreaded foe — the 
yellow fever. Finally news came that a mule train was 
on its way from Panama to Carthagena with a great load 
of treasure. With eighteen men and a Maroon chief, 
named Pedro, with thirty negroes, Drake marched inland 
towards Panama. In four days they reached the lofty 
ridge from which Drake first looked upon the Pacific. 
There was a great tree there in which the Maroons had 
cut and made steps, and had built at the top a " bower 
where ten or twelve men might easily sit." Here the 
Maroon chief " took our captain by the hand and prayed 
him to follow him, if he was desirous to see at once the 
two seas. . . . After our captain had ascended to this 
bower with the chief . . . and having as it pleased God 
at that time by reason of the breeze a very fair day, 
had seen that sea of which he had heard such golden re- 
ports, he besought Almighty God of his goodness to give 



THE COMING OF SEA-POWER 27 

him life and leave to sail once in an English ship in 
that sea. And then calling up the rest of our men he ac- 
quainted John Oxenham especially with this his petition 
and purpose, if it would please God to grant him that hap- 
piness; who understanding it presently protested that 
unless our captain did beat him from his company he 
would follow him by God's grace. Thus all, thoroughly 
satisfied with the sight of the seas, descended, and after 
our repast continued our ordinary march through the 
woods." 

These are only glimpses. They convey little impres- 
sion of orderly sequence. But orderly sequence matters 
less in the age of Elizabeth than in most periods, simply 
because policy, statesmanship, the working out of care- 
fully laid plans play but a small part in the great achieve- 
ments of the time. It was an age primarily of individual 
initiative, of personality. The triumph of Burghley and 
the Queen lay not in the positive doing of things, not in 
constructive diplomacy, but in the preservation of peace, 
in giving England a chance to develop the tremendous 
energy that leaped within her. To understand this Eng- 
lish Renaissance — profitable and even fascinating as it is 
to study the constant game of diplomacy that kept France 
and Spain balanced and steered England clear of the 
rocks and whirlpools of European politics for twenty-five 



28 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

years — it is beyond comparison more necessary to know 
the men of Elizabethan England as they were. So for 
our purpose these bits of real life are worth while, and 
we shall add one more. For it is written that at the end 
of this first buccaneering expedition Drake and his men 
turned at last homeward, u passing hard by Carthagena, 
in the sight of all the fleet, with a flag of St. George in 
the main-top of our frigate, with silk streamers and an- 
cients down to the water, sailing forward with a large 
wind." The impudence of this is emphasized by the fact 
that the adventurers were sailing home in captured Span- 
ish ships, their own having been destroyed in various 
ways during the year. " Within twenty-three days," runs 
on the narrative, u we passed from the Cape of Florida to 
the Isles of Scilly, and so arrived at Plymouth on Sunday 
about sermon-time, August 9, 1573. At what time the 
news of our Captain's return . . . did so pass over all 
the church, and surpass their minds with desire and de- 
light to see him that very few or none remained with 
the preacher, all hastening to see the evidences of God's 
love and blessing toward our gracious Queen and coun- 
try, by the fruit of our Captain's labor and success. Soli 
Deo Gloria." 

Are we to wonder then that when the great crescent of 
Spanish ships of war came slowly up the channel to chas- 



THE COMING OF SEA-POWER 29 

tise the heretic islanders in the last week of July, 1588, 
they were watched by eyes that reflected little fear? All 
the famous leaders who had time and again smitten 
these same foes hip and thigh on the Spanish Main now 
sailed rejoicing out of port after port to do battle for 
England within sight of home, and stalwart sons of 
Devon and Kent who had followed Drake at Nombre de 
Dios or across the Pacific, who had raided African vil- 
lages and Spanish galleons under Hawkins, or sailed 
their little barks between the giant bergs of the Green- 
land coast with Davis and Frobisher, now went joyously 
forth, rejoicing that they were Englishmen, in sure con- 
fidence that the God who had guided them and given 
them courage on far away seas would nerve their arms 
once more against Spain. It was on Saturday, the twen- 
tieth of July, 1588, at daybreak, that the Armada sighted 
the coast of Cornwall. No fighting occurred that day, 
but in the night some sixty English ships sailed around to 
the rear of the great fleet to hover and swoop and sting 
as the Spaniards sailed slowly on toward Calais. Again 
and again during that week the English admiral, Lord 
Howard of Effingham, closed in on the Spaniards for a 
fierce exchange of shots, but it was only to strike a few 
deadly blows and then draw away. " The enemy pur- 
sue me," wrote irritably the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the 



3 o IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Spanish admiral. " They fire upon me most days from 
morning to nightfall; but they will not close and grapple. 
I have given them every opportunity. I have purposely 
left ships exposed to tempt them to board; but they de- 
cline to do it, and there is no remedy, for they are 
swift and we are slow." But well Howard knew that 
much as this running fight might damage and demoralize 
the Spanish fleet, the real death grapple was yet to come. 
On Friday, the twenty-sixth, Lord Henry Seymour, who 
had been waiting between Calais and Dover, joined his 
admiral, while the Spaniards cast anchor off Calais. And 
now the English captains were ready to strike. On Sun- 
day night fire ships were sent drifting down with an easy 
wind on the Spanish fleet. In a panic the great ships cut 
cables and put to sea, sailing on somewhat confusedly to 
form once more in a crescent off the Flemish town of 
Gravelines. And here, on Monday, July twenty-ninth, 
the English closed desperately with their enemies in the 
tremendous conflict that was to determine the independ- 
ence of their country and the greatness of their race for 
ages to come. No new thing was it for the brave sailors 
of Drake and Hawkins to grapple with these lords of the 
Indies, these allies of the Inquisition, these proud devils 
who would treat London as they had treated Antwerp, 



THE COMING OF SEA-POWER 31 

and valiantly did they fight that day for England. By 
the evening the Invincible Armada was in full flight 
toward the North Sea. Then tempests more cruel than 
the English fell fiercely upon the beaten fleet. Painfully, 
in dire confusion, the great galleons labored northwards, 
strewing the shores with wrecks and with the corpses of 
hapless men who had hoped to harry England as they 
had harried the Netherlands, and who had found instead 
a wild grave on the pitiless shore of northern Scotland. 

The defeat of the Armada did not settle the matter, 
of course. It saved England from invasion, perhaps 
from conquest, and was the most brilliant of the victories 
won by English gallantry and spirit over the discipline 
and the resources of Spain. But it by no means de- 
stroyed the sea-power of Spain. It is rather the specific 
point at which the beginning of her decline became evi- 
dent to those who, a few years or decades later, saw her 
star waning and that of England waxing brighter and 
more glorious. And its chief significance may be seen 
best by those who try to see it clearly in its setting. Not 
in that one battle, but in scores of fierce — often un- 
recorded — fights the world over did England give signs 
of her new vitality. And not alone in the joy and bitter- 
ness of warfare, but in the dawn of a new wonder, a new 



32 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

wish to face the mysteries of the world and of life, a new 
enthusiasm and a new power, did the countrymen of 
Raleigh and of Shakespere enter upon an era of adven- 
ture and of achievement beyond the dreams of Columbus 
or of Cortez, 



Ill 

THE OPENING OF THE EAST 

As it was during the reign of Elizabeth that the first 
steps were taken towards the founding of the English 
colonies in America, and the first English ship sailed 
across the Pacific, so it was while the great queen was 
still on the throne that a company of English merchants 
was authorized to enter upon competition with Portugal 
and Holland in the Eastern trade. Here as in America, 
England was late in the field, and before we endeavor to 
see something of the first feeble steps of the famous 
company " of Merchants of London trading into the 
East Indies," we must glance for a moment at their pred- 
ecessors. For many and daring as the explorers of the 
English race have been, there are few chapters in the 
story of the expansion of Europe whose first pages con- 
tain an English name. Our pride of race, amply justified 
as it is, must recognize that if the English race — Ameri- 
can, Canadian, Australian, or pure Yorkshire — has a cer- 
tain careless curiosity, a tenacity, an unwillingness to re- 

33 



34 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

treat, and an inexhaustible determination to somehow 
reach the end aimed at, yet the exploring instinct in us 
is balanced and checked by our own virtues. The Eng- 
lishman seldom forgets the end in the means, or allows 
a dream to overcome his caution. When Henry VII of 
England refused to listen to the application of Columbus 
his caution was typical of his race. When John of Portu- 
gal did the same thing his decision was out of accord 
with a century of Portuguese enterprise. While Marco 
Polo was exploring the far realms of the Khan of Tartary 
England was laying the foundations of her parliamentary 
government. While the Portuguese sailors sent out by 
Henry the Navigator were creeping mile by mile down the 
coast of Africa, England was vainly trying to conquer 
France and settle vexed questions as to the kings who 
should reign over her. In the age of Elizabeth, indeed, 
there was an outburst of chivalrous enthusiasm well rep- 
resented by such heroes as Raleigh and Humphrey Gil- 
bert. But in the main Englishmen need not be given 
credit for being the first to brush aside the dark veil of 
mystery that hid the outer world from the Europe of the 
Middle Ages. Rather do they merit the praise, — more 
practical, if less picturesque — of penetrating, settling, 
trading, building after the veil was lifted. The solid 
virtues of the trader and the pioneer look gray and un- 



THE OPENING OF THE EAST 35 

romantic beside the glorious achievements of Columbus, 
of Vasco da Gama, and of Balboa. The high emotions 
of the man who dares to face absolute mystery and to 
peer over the edge of the known world into possible in- 
finity, are emotions that few Englishmen have felt. And 
yet it is no accident that while an Italian sailor under 
Spanish orders discovered America, and a Portuguese 
navigator first pierced the Indian Ocean by the Cape of 
Good Hope, yet Spanish supremacy has yielded to Anglo- 
Saxon in the western world and the Portuguese posses- 
sions in the East are a mere dot on the edge of the vast 
realm of British India. 

The discovery of America was practically a discovery 
of an unknown world. The voyage of Vasco da Gama 
in 1497-9 was the discovery of a new route to a world 
with which Europe has been in communication for ages. 
A thousand years before Portugal dreamed of a Cape 
route to India there was a steady and rich trade be- 
tween Europe and the East along three great highways, 
each marked by famous and wealthy merchant cities. 
One lay through Alexandria and the Red Sea to the In- 
dian Ocean. A second ran through Syria by way of 
Damascus and Palmyra to Bagdad and Persia. A third 
route was that by Constantinople, the Bosphorus, the Cau- 
casus and the Caspian, connecting with the caravans from 



36 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Northern India, Bokhara, and Samarcand. The second 
of these had once been the greatest. It had fed the 
wealth of Tyre and Sidon and made possible the glory 
of Solomon. But the destruction of Tyre by Alexander 
had paved the way for the rise of Alexandria, and opulent 
as the Syrian cities remained for many ages, the Egyptian 
and the Bosphorus routes took thenceforward the greater 
part of the rich commerce between Asia and the Medi- 
terranean. From the side of Europe the Asiatic trade 
tended more and more after the fall of Rome to fall into 
the hands of the Italian coast cities. Long before Europe 
had fully aroused itself from the stupor and the chaos 
of the Empire's collapse, Venice and Genoa and Pisa were 
sending their galleys to the Levant and the increase of 
trade with the Orient that came during the Crusades 
meant more wealth for the Italian cities as well as for 
Constantinople and Alexandria. But early in the fif- 
teenth century a shadow that had already darkened Syria 
began to menace Constantinople and Egypt. In 1453 
the triumphant Turks stood masters of the Bosphorus, 
and in 15 16 their empire included the valley of the Nile. 
In place of a Christian emperor and the civilized Arabs 
the three great roads to the East were in the hands of a 
wild and brutal race of fanatics, incapable of appreciat- 
ing or preserving the civilization of the lands they had 



THE OPENING OF THE EAST 37 

conquered, and indifferent to the value of the trade 
routes of which they now became the lords. It was as if 
a wall of barbarism had suddenly intervened between 
Europe and Asia. Trade at once became difficult. The 
wealth of Venice and Genoa began a slow but sure de- 
cline. And the very century that saw with every decade 
a new awakening of conscious curiosity and interest in 
the world saw the western peoples confronted with a 
totally new problem that both stimulated their keenest 
interest and seemed to defy solution. 

There were three conceivable ways by which a fifteenth 
century European might think of reaching the Indies. 
One was the old threefold route already described, 
through the Mediterranean. One was straight across the 
Atlantic. One lay round the southern point of Africa. 
Of these the first was familiar enough, but was attended 
now with great difficulty and risk. The second was a 
mere dream until the voyages of Columbus and his suc- 
cessors, and then it proved to be not so much a new route 
to the East as the opening up of a hitherto undreamed of 
continent. That the third should ever have been a mys- 
tery seems strange now, but such it certainly was. The 
north coast of Africa and inland as far as the great desert, 
the valley of the Nile as far as the granite quarries of 
Syene, and a few hundred miles of the Atlantic coast, 



38 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

represented all that Romans or mediaeval Europeans knew 
of what was indeed to them a Dark Continent. 

To Portugal belongs the honor of throwing light on at 
least part of that darkness. Early in the fifteenth cen- 
tury King John I sent out an expedition which passed 
the traditional boundary of Cape Non. His son, grand- 
son on his mother's side of the English John of Gaunt, 
was the famous Henry the Navigator. Making his head- 
quarters on the rocky promontory of Sagres near Cape 
St. Vincent, he founded a school of navigation, gathered 
together all the geographical wisdom of his age and de- 
voted his learning and his vast wealth to the solving of 
the mystery of the African coast. His first expedition in 
141 8 added Porto Santo and Madeira to the dominions 
of Portugal. In 1434 one of Prince Henry's little squad- 
rons headed boldly out to sea and passed for the first time 
the formidable headland of Cape Bojador. Thereafter 
before Spain was even a united state or the enterprise of 
Columbus thought of the ships of her little neighbor 
crept further south, explored the Gold Coast, discovered 
the mouth of the Congo, and finally in i486 under Bar- 
tholomew Diaz doubled the mighty cape that forms the 
turning point of Africa. Almost at the same time Pe- 
dro de Covilham by way of Naples, Cairo, the Red Sea 
and Aden penetrated to India on a voyage, so to speak, 



THE OPENING OF THE EAST 39 

of inspection. After visiting many cities there he set out 
on his return voyage, touching at Sofala on the east coast 
of Africa and reaching practical certainty as to the feasi- 
bility of a Cape route to India. He never reached Por- 
tugal, but in 1490 he sent his king a report which not only 
supplemented that of Diaz, but definitely assured him 
" that the ships which sailed down the coast of Guinea 
might be sure of reaching the termination of the continent, 
by persisting in a course to the south; and that when they 
should arrive in the eastern ocean their best direction 
must be to inquire for Sofala and the Island of the 
Moon." The end might already be anticipated. In 
1494 P°P e Alexander VI divided the East and West be- 
tween Spain and Portugal. And in July, 1497, Vasco da 
Gama sailed from the Tagus on the memorable voyage 
which ended in the harbor of Calicut on the Malabar 
coast of India, May 20, 1498. 

In a later study we shall try to see something of the 
physical and political character of India. It is enough 
for the present to say that the peninsula had not even the 
pretense of unity. The Malabar coast is a mere strip be- 
tween the Western Ghats and the sea, and though the 
ruler of Calicut was one of the most powerful of the coast 
rajahs, yet "Calicut and Cochin" (I quote here from 
Sir William Hunter) " were merely two among half a 



4 o IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

dozen patches of the Malabar strip: all Malabar had 
formed but one-eighth of the single kingdom of Kerala; 
and the entire kingdom of Kerala was only one of the 
fifty-six countries of India recognized by Hindu geogra- 
phy." So the stage on which the Portuguese were to act 
out their part in the endless drama of India was not a 
great one. And gallantly as they faced and drove from 
the field their Moorish rivals in the trade of the Malabar 
coast, nobly as they added deed after deed to their already 
brilliant record of chivalrous heroism, yet the dark hor- 
rors of the Goa Inquisition add a terribly black side to 
the story, and the great names of Vasco da Gama, Al- 
meida, and Albuquerque give place soon to others whose 
ruthless cruelties are redeemed by little of the high souled 
fearlessness and enterprise of the earlier days. 

For a time the Portuguese simply traded, only show- 
ing their prowess when some act of treachery provoked 
them, or when the rivalry of the Moors and their Egyp- 
tian allies culminated in a battle royal between Christian 
and Moslem like the sea fight off Diu in 1509. But there 
was at least one true empire builder among them, and if 
there had been more like him Portugal might have cre- 
ated a great and lasting dominion in the East. Even 
before he was made supreme representative of Portuguese 
authority in eastern waters, Affonso d' Albuquerque, left 



THE OPENING OF THE EAST 41 

in 1507 in command of a squadron of six ships by Tristan 
da Cunha, conquered Socotra and imposed submission 
and payment of tribute on the Kingdom of Ormuz. And 
these were no barren triumphs of a mere fighter. The 
line of trade by which Portugal's Moslem competitors 
carried wealthy cargoes of Indian merchandise to meet 
the galleys of Venice in the ports of Egypt lay through 
the Red Sea. Socotra lay almost across their path, and 
the ships that might steer to the north and so avoid So- 
cotra, would have to pass by Ormuz. Moreover a hold 
over Ormuz meant control of the outlet of the Persian 
Gulf, and this carried with it not only a rich source of 
trade, but a long step — perhaps a complete one — to- 
wards maritime supremacy in the Orient. These bold 
strokes were carried out against the will of practically 
all the great captain's associates. They even ventured 
to present to him a written remonstrance, not daring to 
protest by word of mouth from fear of his passionate 
temper. But he struck aside all opposition, built a strong 
fortress at Ormuz, besieged the port of Aden, captured 
Goa and held it as a point of vantage for the control 
of the Malabar coast, and in 15 n seized the very center 
of the Mussulman trade further east by the conquest of 
Malacca. By 15 15 the Portuguese were lords of the 
whole ocean highway from the African coast north to the 



42 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Persian Gulf and east to the Spice Islands. Glad should 
we be if it were possible to devote more time to the 
knightly Viceroy to whom this was chiefly due. Of a 
nobler type than either Cortez or Pizarro, he is rather to 
be compared in our minds with the great Englishman of 
two centuries later — Clive. It is told of him that a 
bitter enemy, one who had been with him and had sought 
again and again to thwart him in his great enterprises, 
died in poverty at Cochin while Albuquerque was at the 
height of his greatness. " But Affonso d' Albuquerque 
forgot all that he had been guilty of towards himself 
and only held in memory that this man had been his 
companion in arms, and had helped him in all the troubles 
connected with the conquest of the kingdom of Ormuz 
like a cavalier, and ordered him to be buried at his expense 
with the usual display of torches, and himself accom- 
panied the body to the grave clad all in mourning." 

The first quarter of the sixteenth century, then, saw 
Portugal in practical possession of a monopoly of the 
trade of Southern Asia. The Italian cities had to be con- 
tent with that which still might be brought in a thin 
trickle by Moorish and Egyptian merchants through the 
Red Sea, or which came by the two more northerly routes 
— through Syria and through the Bosphorus. The glory 
of Lisbon surpassed the glory of Venice, and Lisbon her- 



THE OPENING OF THE EAST 43 

self was almost equaled by Goa. Yet with the new 
spirit of intellectual life and enterprise that was stirring 
in Europe monopoly could not long prevail, — at least 
without a struggle. Even the treaty with Spain (the 
Treaty of Tordesillas), drawing a line between the two 
empires 370 leagues west of the Azores, ignored the fact 
that the- earth was round, and before long the Portu- 
guese traders saw with consternation the little squadron 
of Magellan (a Portuguese, but in the service of Spain) 
come sailing across the Pacific to the Philippines and the 
Moluccas. Each of the indignant rivals could appeal 
with unanswerable force to the Papal Bull of 1493 and 
the Treaty of Tordesillas ( 1494) , and though the matter 
was partly settled by the Convention of Saragossa in 
1529 there remained much heartburning and frequent 
deadly quarrels. 

The two other possible competitors (before the revolt 
of the Netherlands from Spain) were France and Eng- 
land. But until late in the century both of these accepted 
as a thing accomplished the arrangements of 1493-4. 
One opening only was left by which the ambition and en- 
terprise of the two northern states might find a way to 
gain wealth and power overseas. The Treaty of Tor- 
desillas forbade intrusion from the west or south. Noth- 
ing was said about the north. Even before the voyage 



44 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

of Columbus the merchants of Bristol had sent ships out 
into the western ocean to seek a northwest passage to 
Asia, and after 1492 their efforts were redoubled. So in 
the closing years of the fifteenth century we see Spain 
believing herself to possess a southwestern passage to 
India, Portugal finally achieving the discovery of a south- 
eastern route, and England eagerly seeking one by the 
northwest. No one realized that the three might clash. 
" You wrote that a person like Columbus," says the King 
of Spain in a letter to his ambassador in England in 1496, 
" has come to England for the purpose of persuading the 
king to enter into an undertaking similar to that of the 
Indies, without prejudice to Spain or Portugal. He is 
quite at liberty." 

In May, 1497, accordingly, John Cabot sailed from 
England with the hope of reaching Asia by the north 
Atlantic. Late in June — first of Europeans unless we 
except Lief Ericsson — he sighted the mainland of North 
America somewhere on the coast of Newfoundland or 
Cape Breton Island; but he and England thought it was 
Asia, and voyage after voyage ended in vain explora- 
tions on the unpromising coasts of Newfoundland and 
Labrador in search of some sign of the way to Cathay. 
That America was not Asia was evident before many 



THE OPENING OF THE EAST 45 

years, but there was left a chance of at le*ast passing 
through by the north to the Pacific as Magellan had to 
the south. And not of a northwest passage only, but 
even of one by the northeast was there hope in those 
years of blind groping. In 1553 Sir Hugh Willoughby 
sailed — at the suggestion and under the protection of a 
company headed by Sebastian Cabot — for the discovery 
of Cathay, and " diverse other regions, dominions, is- 
lands, and places unknown," by the northeast route. 
Through the summer and fall of that year his three vessels 
coasted along the cheerless shores of Russia, until winter 
fell upon them. And there two years later the hapless 
captain and his seventy men were found sitting or lying 
as they had died, blocks of ice in the shape of men, Wil- 
loughby himself seated at his table with maps and papers 
before him, watching them with dead eyes that were as 
full and clear as, when the fatal drowsiness had seized 
them two long arctic nights before. John Milton tells 
the whole weird story in his " History of Moscovia." 
More famous, doubtless, are the efforts of Humphrey 
Gilbert in the northwest, and the three voyages of Martin 
Frobisher of which we have already spoken. But none 
of these availed, and the memory of them only remains 
to illustrate to us the awakening energy of the people who 



46 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

were already — in Frobisher's time — matching strength 
with Spain on her own ground, and were soon to intrude 
on the eastern domain of Portugal. 

Four important events now have to be noted and kept 
in mind as bases of our next step forward into this subject 
of the opening of the East. First, the adoption by the 
English of the Protestant faith, carrying with it a new 
attitude of independence toward the Papal award of 1493. 
Second, the revolt of the Netherlands and the rapid rise 
of Holland as a maritime power. Third, the temporary 
union in 1580 of the crowns of Spain and Portugal. And 
fourth, the gradual growth and final bursting into flame 
of fierce hatred between Catholic Spain and Protestant 
England. Drake showed his countrymen with sufficient 
clearness that the northwest and northeast passages were 
not the only possible routes from England to India. The 
declining spirit and power of Portugal .was already com- 
pelling her as the sixteenth century neared its close to 
give way in the East to the fierce courage and enterprise 
of the Dutch. And though the search for the northwest 
passage was not wholly put aside, yet the founding of the 
East India Company in 1600 proved that England had 
definitely decided to enter competition with Portugal and 
Holland in the Indian Ocean. 

We say " with Portugal and Holland," for we must re- 



THE OPENING OF THE EAST 47 

member that the burst of new life in England in the age of 
Elizabeth was in a measure paralleled across the channel 
by the appearance of an independent, fiercely virile Hol- 
land. And the new Dutch national energy, like the Eng- 
lish, found part of its expression in maritime and com- 
mercial enterprise. The Dutch Barentz failed as com- 
pletely — though less tragically — as the English Wil- 
loughby in the attempt to reach Asia by the northeast; 
and the more gloriously their obstinate courage was re- 
warded by victories over their Spanish oppressors, the 
more confidently did they turn to the hope of competing 
with Portugal in her own seas and by the Cape route. 
Two patriotic Dutchmen brought to their country the 
necessary initial information. Cornelius Hunter, a resi- 
dent for many years of Lisbon, found out — by inquiries 
so diligent that they brought him imprisonment at the 
hands of the suspicious Portuguese — all that could be 
learned at the capital. And his facts were supplemented 
by the observations of John Huyghen van Linschoten of 
Haarlem, who from 1583 to 1589 lived at Goa, the 
Portuguese capital of the Indies, in the train of the Arch- 
bishop. His accounts of India and of the routes to the 
East were published by the special license of the Dutch 
States-General, and in 1595 a squadron of four ships was 
sent out under Cornelius Houtman. Avoiding the penin- 



48 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

sula of India he sailed on to the island of Java, made a 
treaty with the king of Bantam, and returned home in 
triumph. Between 1595 and 1601 fifteen Dutch expedi- 
tions followed in the footsteps of Houtman or penetrated 
the Pacific by the Straits of Magellan, and in 1602 was 
formed the Dutch East India Company. 

But Linschoten's " Voyage to the East Indies ' was 
translated into English in 1598, and the splendor of the 
prize — "great provinces, puissant cities, and unmeasur- 
able islands " — was held up to the eager eyes of the 
countrymen of Gresham and Hawkins. " I do not 
doubt," runs the preface, " but yet I do most heartily pray 
and wish that this poor Translation may work in our 
English nation a further desire and increase of honor 
over all countries of the world by means of our Wodden 
Walles." It was a wish abundantly fulfilled. Linschot- 
en's work only reenforced the impression already made 
by the marvels told by an English traveler, Ralph Fitch, 
who visited Ormuz in 1583, was taken thence as a pris- 
oner to Goa; journeyed after his release to the court of 
the Mogul Emperor Akbar (where he saw a deplorable 
number of heathen temples and idols: " some be like a 
cow, some like a monkey, some like peacocks, and some 
like the devil ") , then farther east still to Bengal, Burmah 
and Malacca. In 1 59 1 he returned to England with a 



THE OPENING OF THE EAST 49 

complete account of the wealth of the Indian trade and 
the weakness of the Portuguese hold on it. So the inter- 
est awakened by Fitch, renewed by Linschoten, and stim- 
ulated by every rumor of the decline of the Portuguese 
monopoly and the success of the Dutch in Java, Sumatra 
and Ceylon, was at last focused on a definite undertaking. 
On September 22, 1599, an assembly of London merchants 
met in Founders' Flail to consider the situation. The 
projects for a route by either northeast or northwest, 
though not wholly put aside, seemed unlikely to come to 
anything. The Muscovy Company, which had tried since 
1554 to carry on trade by an overland route through 
Russia, was fast realizing that the journey was too long 
and too expensive for profitable traffic. And the Levant 
Company, which had been competing with the Mediter- 
ranean merchants on their own ground with some success, 
was finding Turkish insolence, the greed of the Barbary 
pirates, and the Spanish hold on the Straits of'Gibraltar 
so vexatious and disastrous that any relief might well be 
welcomed. It is not surprising, therefore, that two of 
the most prominent men in the assembly of London 
merchants in Founders' Hall were among the founders of 
the Levant Company. Already, earlier in 1599, they 
had sent to the court of the Great Mogul one John 
Mildenhall, a merchant of London, to make preliminary 



So IMPERIAL ENGLAND 

negotiations for the opening up of trade with India with 
renewed energy and by the Cape route. And now after 
some days of discussion the assembly subscribed £30,133 
for an initial voyage and formally requested the Queen 
to grant them " a privilege in succession and to incor- 
porate them in a company, for that the trade to the Indies 
being so far remote from hence, cannot be traded but in 
a joint and a united stock." 

For diplomatic reasons the consent of the government 
was delayed, but at last it was intimated to the leaders 
of the enterprise that all was well. At once a committee 
was appointed to arrange for the voyage. A warship 
of 600 tons — built to serve as a privateer and owned 
by the Earl of Cumberland — with three smaller ships 
and a pinnace were purchased and fitted out with speed, 
the committee providing a barrel of beer daily for the 
workmen so that u they leave not their work to run to the 
alehouse." More than double the original capital was 
subscribed. And on December 31, 1600, a charter from 
Queen Elizabeth constituted the adventurers into " one 
body complete and politick, in deed and in name, by the 
name of the Governor and Company of Merchants of 
London trading into the East Indies," the purposes of the 
undertaking being " the Honor of our Nation, the Wealth 
of our People, the Increase of our Navigation, and the 



THE OPENING OF THE EAST 51 

advancement of lawful traffic to the benefit of our Com- 
monwealth." The charter secured to the Company for 
fifteen years an exclusive right to trade in all seas and 
countries beyond the Cape and Straits of Magellan except 
such as may be in the actual possession of any Christian 
prince " in amity with the Queen," with the necessary 
powers of discipline, by-laws, and defense. Thus appro- 
priately, in the closing years of great Elizabeth, was 
formed that most famous of all merchant companies, des- 
tined after a century and a half of trade to stand suddenly 
in dazzing splendor before the world as the conqueror of 
the Carnatic, of Bengal, then of all India. 

Before we turn to the early struggles of the company 
in the East, it would be a pity not to quote the quaint, 
Puritanical, Elizabethan regulations issued by the Direc- 
tors to their servants. At each factory, as a trading post 
was called, the members of the staff were to live and eat 
together, to meet daily for prayers, and to be in at a cer- 
tain hour of night. They must be brotherly one to an- 
other ("no brabbles"), cleanly of person, respectful to 
superior officers and to the preacher, and careful as to 
their health. Blasphemy, gambling, drinking, and ban- 
queting are sternly denounced. And all these instruc- 
tions are given in a kindly, albeit an uncompromising tone, 
in minutes and in letters in which a strictly business detail 



52 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

might be followed by a grave warning against the evils 
of gluttony. Take these sentences from a letter of 1610. 
" And because there is no means more prevalent to 
strengthen and confirm the ways of the godly in righteous- 
ness than the spirit of God which is the guide into all good 
motions, and no aim more pregnant to support and up- 
hold the sinner from falling into wickedness than the 
grace of God. ... we exhort you in the fear of God 
to be very careful to assemble together your whole family 
(i.e., all the employees of the post) every morning and 
evening, and to join together in all humility with hearty 
prayer to Almighty God for his merciful protection." 
" Settle such modest and sober government in your own 
household that neither amongst themselves there be con- 
tentious quarrels or other occasions of strife." " Com- 
port yourselves both in your habit and housekeeping in 
such comely and convenient manner as neither may dis- 
parage our business nor be accounted too excessive in 
expenses." This admirable advice was accompanied, 
moreover, with goodly aids to spiritual and intellectual re- 
freshment. " For the better comfort and recreation of 
such of our factors as are residing in the Indies we have 
sent the works of that worthy servant of Christ Mr. Wil- 
liam Perkins, together with Foxe's ' Book of Martyrs ' 
and Mr. Hackluit's voyages to recreate their spirits with 



THE OPENING OF THE EAST 53 

variety of history." What could be better, surely? 

One's heart goes out across the three centuries to these 

stalwart old London merchants who so studiously chose 

their words in the quaintly phrased dispatches. The old 

letter books of the Company are yellow and musty now, 

and yet life comes back to them quickly enough as we 

read words throbbing with the same spirit that we know 

so well in colonial New England, the spirit of indomitable 

Puritan strength and conviction and unshakable purpose. 

These founders of the East India Company were men 

who might have been the fathers or the neighbors of 

those who, a few years later, settled Plymouth and Boston. 

The first ten years of the new undertaking were years 

of doubtful fortune. Not only was each voyage itself 

long and hazardous, not only was it no easy matter to 

take from England commodities that could be profitably 

exchanged for the silks and calicoes and spices of Asia, 

but suspicious and powerful enemies awaited with deadly 

intent each English ship that ventured into the Indian 

Ocean. On the coast of India the Portuguese still held 

the field, not in the old-time strength that had been theirs 

before the dead hand of Spain had fallen upon them, 

and before the cruel poison of the Inquisition had sapped 

their life, but still with gallant determination to defend 

what was left of the heritage bequeathed to them by Da 



54 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Gama and Albuquerque. And farther east, at Malacca 
and on the coast of Java the Dutch watchfully held the 
control of the trade to the Spice Islands. Behind both 
of these European rivals lay the native princes, and little 
as they might love the masterful aliens who bullied them 
into trade and curtailed their independence, yet they were 
scarcely likely to risk cruel displeasure and vengeance by 
giving favor to the insignificant late comers. 

The first distinct conflict on the Malabar coast came in 
the fall of 1611, near Surat. Sir Henry Middleton with 
three English ships found a Portuguese squadron of 
twenty armed vessels lying across the mouth of the river 
by which the city had to be reached. Their commander, 
with courtesy, but with decision, informed the English 
captain that unless he bore letters from the King of Spain 
or his Viceroy he must forbid entrance. To which Mid- 
dleton naturally responded that he came not to inter- 
fere with any rights of the Portuguese but to open up 
trade with the Great Mogul, in whose cities he had as 
good a right to trade as any adventurer in Christendom. 
But the Englishman's insistence availed little against his 
rival's positive orders, and a more definite step became 
necessary when supplies began to run short and scurvy to 
break out. Three ships seemed scarcely likely to break a 
blockade maintained by twenty, yet seamanship availed 



THE OPENING OF THE EAST 55 

much in the shoals of that dangerous coast, and the attack 
that came as the English stood in toward shore was beaten 
off so fiercely that the attitude of the natives was deter- 
mined as it was by Clive's defense of Arcot nearly a cen- 
tury and a half later. The sight of a prize taken trium- 
phantly by the little force of the English under the very 
eyes of a six times stronger enemy convinced the discern- 
ing Indians that the hostility of the Portuguese was less 
dangerous than that of the new arrivals, and trade was 
opened at once. If doubt still remained, it was removed 
by the great fight off Swally, near Surat, in December, 
161 2. Four Portuguese galleons, aided by twenty-six 
small galleys — useful for quick movement in the shal- 
low water — tried to capture Thomas Best, commanding 
the Company's ship Red Dragon and a smaller vessel 
that he had with him. Day after day the armada re- 
newed the attack, ashamed to give up the contest, and yet 
forced again and again to cease their onset and flee from 
these savage sons of the men who had fought under Drake 
and Howard; until at last, with sore loss in men and 
ships, the remainder of the squadron sailed away south to 
Goa, and the Mogul's soldiers who had gathered on the 
shore to witness the fight knew that the star of Portugal 
in India had set. To Best, himself, exactly a year later 
(December, 16 13), was given the imperial decree which 



5 6 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

established an English factory at Surat, — the first definite 
foothold in India of the future masters of Delhi. 

The victory over the Portuguese came none too soon. 
For disaster followed disaster in the Spice Islands, until 
in 1623 the Dutch seized the Company's representatives 
at Amboyna, tortured and executed ten of them, and 
drove their rivals from the field. It was indeed the great 
age of Holland. This business of Amboyna was mur- 
derous and shameful enough, but in the main the Dutch 
won in the far East because the eastern trade was to them 
a national enterprise, into which they threw their full 
strength at a time when their country was filled with the 
spirit of an heroic age. So they held their own in the 
Spice Islands, and the English returned to India, not 
knowing that their place of retreat held for them a des- 
tiny immeasurably greater than any petty bargain with 
the Dutch could have brought them in the Moluccas. 
Each company — Dutch and English — now held to its 
own field, and the defeated Portuguese clung, angry and 
disconsolate, to a Goa shorn of its splendor, nursing great 
memories of the time when their heroic captains had 
achieved for Europe the opening of the East. One act 
in the great drama of India was over. 



IV 

THE GREAT DUEL WITH FRANCE 

When Philip II sent his invincible Armada to invade 
England in 1588 he was unquestionably lord of the most 
powerful monarchy in Christendom. A century before, 
Spain was hardly beginning to be ranked as a great 
power. A century after, she had yielded her primacy to 
France. It was long, indeed, before England realized 
that the adversary with whom she had grappled so fiercely 
on the Spanish Main and in the fight off Gravelines was 
ceasing to be dangerous. For Spain's decline was a grad- 
ual one. The wealth of Mexico and South America 
made her for generations the richest state in Europe, — 
richest, that is to say, in wealth immediately available for 
purposes of conquest and aggrandizement. We see now 
clearly enough that gold and silver are by no means the 
surest source of national prosperity. We know that the 
very use of the shiploads of bullion that came year after 
year from America meant a squandering of resources as 
absolute as the Hewing down of a vast area of timber 

57 



58 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

without thought of replanting. As each tree might be 
made an immediate source of revenue, so might each ingot 
of gold or silver; but as the destruction of the forest 
leaves a barren waste of stumps, so the draining of the 
Indies meant ultimate exhaustion of the supply, and 
worse still, the moral degeneration of the spendthrift 
who draws on his capital and awakens too late from the 
illusion that has destroyed him. All this is clear enough 
now, and needs little wisdom to point the moral. But 
during the first half of the seventeenth century Spain's 
gold still made her formidable, and if her fleets were 
yielding place to those of Holland and England, yet her 
naval power was not to be despised, and her soldiers were 
still esteemed the best equipped and the best disciplined in 
Europe. 

France was her great rival, as in the days of Charles 
V, but the relative strength of the combatants was no 
longer what it had been when the giant power of the lord 
of Austria, Spain, the Netherlands and the Indies struck 
down Francis I at Pavia. During the period when the 
might of Spain was at its zenith — • i.e., during a great 
part of the sixteenth century — France lay almost power- 
less, torn in twain by the fierce religious wars of which 
St. Bartholomew was only the most terrible incident. 
But at last in 1598, when Spain, ruined by the bigotry of 



THE GREAT DUEL WITH FRANCE 59 

Philip II and the deceptive wealth of the Indies, was well 
on the road to hopeless decline, her rival stood united 
and strong with the vigor of a healthy patriotic reaction 
against the disunion of the past fifty years. Under Henry 
of Navarre France entered upon a new era. 

There are few periods to which a Frenchman untainted 
by«extreme republicanism can look back with more patri- 
otic satisfaction than the seventeenth century. It was 
not an age of developing liberty. On the contrary it saw 
the steady decrease of national influence on the govern- 
ment, and the rise of a monarchy more absolutely cen- 
tralized and more perfectly organized than Europe had 
seen since the best days of Rome. But at the same time, 
under the strong, wise rule of men like Henry IV and his 
great co-worker Sully, the two famous Cardinals, Riche- 
lieu and Mazarin, and that master brain of all the minis- 
ters of Louis XIV, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, France grew 
and waxed prosperous, while her power in arms at length 
overshadowed that of Spain herself. The peace that 
closed the Thirty Years' War in Germany (1648) was in 
effect a diplomatic triumph for France and a blow to 
Spain. Already on the field of Rocroi (1643) Conde 
had anticipated by force of arms the victory planned by 
the cunning brains of Richelieu and Mazarin, and in those 
fateful five years the military greatness of Spain sank 



60 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

beyond hope of resurrection. Henceforward her destiny 
tended more and more to be merged into that of her rival, 
until in the eighteenth century the alliance between the 
countries north and south of the Pyrenees was a familiar 
and permanent fact in the diplomacy of Europe, — an 
alliance, moreover, in which France was the controlling 
factor. Only fitfully and ineffectually did Spain ever 
again assert a claim to the glory that had been hers before 
the Inquisition cowed her into spiritual torpor, and her ill- 
gotten wealth destroyed her manhood. But France grew 
more formidable with every decade. Louis XIV, with 
all his faults, had two virtues which, joined to a never 
satisfied ambition and a limitless vanity, seemed likely 
for a time to make him master of Europe: he had im- 
mense industry and the keenest of eyes in the selection of 
able ministers. " Louis XIV," says Macaulay in one of 
his most Macaulayesque passages, " was not a great gen- 
eral. He was not a great legislator. But he was, in 
one sense of the word, a great king. . . . His was a 
talisman which extorted the obedience of the proudest 
and mightiest spirits. The haughty and turbulent war- 
riors whose contests had agitated France during his minor- 
ity yielded to the irresistible spell, and like the gigantic 
slaves of the ring and lamp of Aladdin, labored to deco- 
rate and aggrandize a master whom they could have 



THE GREAT DUEL WITH FRANCE 61 

crushed. . . . The arms of Turenne were the terror of 
Europe. The policy of Colbert was the strength of 
France. But in their foreign successes and their internal 
prosperity the people saw only the greatness and wisdom 
of Louis." 

Now all the power, all the genius at the disposal of 
this proud lord of France, all the resources of his vast 
realm, were turned to the realization of two great 
schemes. With Colbert steadily building up the wealth 
of the country, nursing its industry and commerce and 
organizing its finances, with Louvois, Conde, Turenne, 
and Vauban rapidly fashioning armies, building fortifica- 
tions, gathering and perfecting all the equipment of war, 
or hurling a blow with sure stroke against some startled 
enemy, — the king himself regarded wealth and mili- 
tary power simply as means by which he could in Europe 
extend his dominions to the Rhine, and in America build 
up a colony that might mean more to France in days to 
come than Mexico and Peru with all their wealth had 
ever meant to Spain. The former would mean suprem- 
acy in Europe; the latter might well mean in time suprem- 
acy in the world. Opposition to the first would come 
from the Netherlands, the German states along the fron- 
tier, and Austria, all of whom were threatened with par- 
tial or complete conquest and the dangerous neighbor- 



62 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

hood of a vast and expanding military power. To these 
might be added England, if she could spare time and en- 
ergy from her absorbing problems at home to attend to 
affairs across the Channel. In the New World, Ger- 
many, Holland and Austria were interested not at all. 
There the ambition of Louis was confronted only by the 
colonies of England. But behind the colonies stood the 
mother country, and events might well bring about such a 
situation that Great Britain would perforce have to 
arouse herself to a stern conflict or submit to a second 
place or none at all on the sea and in America. 

Such then was the situation when England at last ended 
her long period of struggle, doubt, and heart-burning in 
the effort to reconcile her well-loved principles of mon- 
archy with her fundamental liberties. One stage of the 
conflict had carried her into republicanism, an end not de- 
sired and not maintained. The next crisis, that of 1688, 
had a happier and more stable outcome. The departure 
of James II and the coming of William III inaugurated 
the limited monarchy of England as we know it, and the 
country could once more turn with a free mind to prob- 
lems other than those of Parliaments and kingly prerog- 
atives. Here then stood one such problem in full sight. 
The growth of France had already awakened the jealousy 
and anxiety of thoughtful leaders of all parties. When 



THE GREAT DUEL WITH FRANCE 63 

William of Orange was invited to take the throne, the 
Englishmen who sent for him knew perfectly well that 
they were negotiating with the man who, as the chief 
magistrate of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, 
was the bitterest and ablest of all the enemies of France. 
His accession to the throne of England meant at once the 
formation of a Grand Alliance against the ambition of 
Louis in which the island kingdom took the first place. 
So was opened in 1689 that second Hundred Years' War, 
as Seeley has called it, which began as an effort to restore 
and maintain the balance of power but which became 
finally a gigantic duel for empire in three continents, only 
ending at last on the field of Waterloo. 

For a systematic study of the conflict in its European 
phases we have no time just now, necessary as it may be 
occasionally to revert to single situations that were world- 
wide in their significance. Rather must we turn now 
definitely to America, where the most momentous part of 
the great struggle was to be fought out. Nowhere else 
in the world were the two rivals face to face in quite such 
an uncompromising way. Beginning their colonial ex- 
perience on the same continent at almost the same time, 
they developed there, each colony after the manner of 
the race it represented. In the one grew up stalwart 
citizens and men of affairs like Franklin and Washington. 



64 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

We of English speech know them well, for they are of our 
own blood. In the other were men of an even more pic- 
turesque type, perhaps, a type at any rate less familiar 
to us, — knightly heroes like Champlain, Frontenac and 
La Salle, who, if they failed in their effort to plant a faith- 
ful and powerful image of old France in the New World, 
left us nevertheless a deathless memory of courage and 
constancy. Between the two peoples grew up a mortal 
enmity. Almost from the very infancy of the two col- 
onies New France and New England gripped throats 
and fought savagely for life and power. Even in so vast 
a continent neither was content to own a rival or a pos- 
sible superior. So supreme was the long struggle and 
so momentous the issue that no true American, no true 
Englishman has vulgarized it by a word of contempt for 
the conquered. No annals written by an American his- 
torian are so fascinating, so vitalized by living sym- 
pathy, as the familiar narratives that tell us fthe heroic 
tales of the Jesuit mission among the Hurons, of Cham- 
plain's voyage up the Ottawa, of wild grapples with an 
irreconcilable, ever watchful enemy, of the perils and ro- 
mance of Ville Marie, of the self-sacrifice, the gallant 
courage, the loyal endurance of the brave race whom in 
no unequal fight our fathers fought and conquered. And 
in our memories of the last great conflict between the two 



THE GREAT DUEL WITH FRANCE 6$ 

races in America, when all our pride of blood is stirred 
by the glorious deeds of English and Americans fighting 
and winning side by side, and when we treasure every 
word and every movement of the conqueror of Quebec, 
the countrymen of Parkman have yet surely rewritten for 
Montcalm the noble line of Juvenal, — Victrix causa dels 
placuit, victa Catoni. 

Queen Elizabeth and most of her paladins were dead 
before the first permanent colony was planted by English- 
men in a new world. The son of Mary Stuart was on the 
throne, ignoble son of a brilliant mother, and if Shake- 
speare and Ben Jonson and Bacon still continued the liter- 
ary glory of the Elizabethan age, Raleigh alone remained 
of that chivalrous group of courtiers and men of action 
who left to the duller, grayer ages that followed a mem- 
ory so full of magic life and color. It was his colony 
that at last in 1606 took root in the land he had named 
Virginia, — took root and waxed strong and manfully 
asserted its right to manage its own affairs before it was 
twenty years old. The settlers represented divers and 
complex motives,— thirst for actual gold, the wealth that 
might come from a northwest passage if, as was thought, 
the Western Ocean were only a little distance away, and 
the more practical belief that a good trade could be built 
up with the products of the soil. Englishmen too saw 



66 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

the advantage of buying from a colony what had hereto- 
fore been imported from foreign states. " What com- 
modities soever," wrote one enthusiast, " Spaine, France, 
Italy, or these parts doe yield to us in wines of all sorts, 
in oyles, in flax, in rosens, in pitch, frankinsense, coorans, 
sugers, and such like, these partes doe abound with the 
growth of them all." And if the dearth of gold mines 
and the fading of the dream of a near-by Western Sea 
caused the abandonment of some of the early visions, 
if there were many dark years of misery and discourage- 
ment, yet on the whole the colony grew and prospered, 
and even though tobacco might take the place of " oyles 
and frankinsense " a good thriving traffic sprang up never- 
theless, and the colony forged gallantly ahead in spite of 
Spanish intrigues, settlers of doubtful morals, vexatious 
laws and troubles with the Indians. For back of all the 
struggles and anxieties of those years there was hope, nay 
a certainty, that a great future awaited the little colony 
if only she could win her way through these first hard 
years. " Be not gulled," wrote Governor Dale in vigor- 
ous words to England, " with the clamorous reports of 
bad people. Believe Caleb and Joshua. ... I have seen 
the best countries of Europe; I protest unto you before 
the living God — put them all together, this country will 
be equivalent unto them, it being inhabitant with good 




VMS. tH9. CO., »J.Y. 



THE AMERICA OF WOLFE AND MONTCALM 



THE GREAT DUEL WITH FRANCE 67 

people." And the same hope strengthened the courage 
of those stouthearted and worthy Englishmen who prayed 
14 that merciful and tender God who is both easie and glad 
to be entreated, that it would please Him to bless and 
water these feeble beginnings, and that as He is wonder- 
ful in all His workes, so to nourish this graine of seed that 
it may spread till the people of this earth admire the 
greatness and seeke the shade and fruits thereof." 1 

Fourteen years after the founding of Jamestown and 
many hundreds of miles to the northeast, in a little ship 
coasting anxiously along a rocky shore, there gathered one 
December day in 1620 a group of grave men to put their 
names to a solemn covenant: 

In the name of God, amen; we, whose names are under- 
written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign King James, 
. . . having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement 
of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a 
voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Vir- 
ginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the pres- 
ence of God and of one another covenant and combine our- 
selves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering 
and preservation and furthering of the ends aforesaid; and by 
virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal 
laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to 
time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the gen- 
eral good of the colony. Unto which we promise all due sub- 
mission and obedience. 

1 Brown, " Genesis of the United States," Vol. I. 



68 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

In this spirit was founded the colony of Plymouth, 
and in this spirit another group of Puritans founded Bos- 
ton ten years later. In this spirit did little bands of men 
go forth from Massachusetts from time to time to found 
what we now know as the other states of New England. 
And the same soberness of mind, the same depth of re- 
sponsibility, the same grave independence of spirit per- 
meates every act and every utterance of these strong- 
souled founders of this new Puritan England. Freedom, 
(not Rousseau's freedom, but the self-restrained liberty 
of Englishmen), responsibility, caution, courage of con- 
viction, — all the typical English virtues of the sterner 
kind are found in these exiles. Broad minded and broad 
hearted kindliness, joy in the beauty and pleasures of 
the world were doubtless lacking; these virtues of the 
milder, more joyous, more generous type would be found 
more readily in the homes of Maryland and Virginia. 
For Heaven turned to the Cavalier a brighter counte- 
nance than to the Puritan. To the earnest citizen of 
Plymouth or Boston in those days this earthly life was a 
grave business, to be lightened doubtless for the younger 
spirits by some godly mirth and by the natural sentiments 
of life — Jonathan Edwards himself was no Hildebrand, 
nor was Cotton Mather a St. Bernard — but grave in the 
main nevertheless, with the commandments of the Lord, 



THE GREAT DUEL WITH FRANCE 69 

the brevity and responsibilities of life, and the fear of 
Hell to be kept constantly in mind. Yet the reversion 
to Old Testament standards which was the bane of Pu- 
ritanism, and which was implied in Cotton's motto for his 
code of laws — " Jehovah is our Judge, Jehovah is our 
Lawgiver, Jehovah is our King; He will save us " — was 
ever balanced in the sagacious minds of the ruling spirits 
of the little commonwealth by the steadying influence of 
their race traditions. " Our government," declared the 
Massachusetts General Court in 1646, "is framed ac- 
cording to our Charter and the fundamental and common 
laws of England, and carried on according to the same 
(taking the words of eternal truth and righteousness 
along with them, as that rule by which all kingdoms and 
jurisdictions must render account of every act and admin- 
istration at the last day "). So on these two foundation 
stones, the fundamental laws of England and u eternal 
truth and righteousness " did these earnest fellow coun- 
trymen of Hampden and Eliot try to begin the building 
of a structure that might endure. 

Such then in essential characteristics were the English 
colonists in America in the seventeenth century. The 
whole tendency of their life and growth was in the direc- 
tion of greater freedom, greater independence, the more 
complete realization of the principles of Magna Charta 



70 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

and the Petition of Right, and this was substantially as 
true of Virginia as of Massachusetts. So with great va- 
riety, but with this solid basis of individual liberty and 
self-respect underlying all, the colonies of New England 
and the South grew until they had absorbed and more or 
less Anglicized the Dutch of New York, the Swedes of 
Delaware, and the Germans of Pennsylvania, and had 
occupied the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida. By 
the middle of the eighteenth century their population num- 
bered over a million and a half, one fourth of whom 
were negro slaves, scattered along the coast and spread- 
ing inland in rapidly decreasing density to the edge of the 
Alleghenies. Most of the people were farmers. The 
only cities of any size were Philadelphia, Boston, New 
York and Charleston, — the largest being Philadelphia, 
with a population of about 25,000. Of the thirteen col- 
onies, three were governed according to a charter (Mass- 
achusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island), three were 
held by a proprietor, (Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Del- 
aware), and seven were controlled directly by the Crown 
(Virginia, the Carolinas, New York, New Hampshire, 
New Jersey, and Georgia), but the government of them 
all was practically identical, for in all there was a governor 
and a representative assembly, and in all the assembly 
held the reins of power almost as completely as does the 



THE GREAT DUEL WITH FRANCE 71 

House of Commons in modern England. Apart from 
commercial regulation — vexatious, but more or less 
taken for granted — there was little interference of any 
kind from England. In nearly every practical respect 
the American colonies, first fruits of the expansion of 
England, were free and independent states. 

And now what of the expansion of France? Less than 
thirty years after the death of Columbus, Jacques Carrier 
of St. Malo crossed the Atlantic to the beautiful country 
where he was to plant the banner of the lilies. Into the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence and up the glorious river the Breton 
sailor guided his little ship until he saw outlined before 
him that cape which can never be forgotten by him who 
once sees it, — outlines bold and defiant as Gibraltar, yet 
softened by touches of green to a beauty utterly unlike 
the hard, uncompromising grimness of the Mediterranean 
fortress. On still he sailed until he came to the island 
that lies at the mouth of the Ottawa, and here, six hun- 
dred miles from the sea, checked in his progress by the 
Lachine rapids, he decided to turn back. Where a great 
city now stands Cartier found the walled town of Hoch- 
elaga, and there the friendly Indians received the white 
men, implored their touch for the aged and sick, and 
guided them to the top of the mountain named by its dis- 
coverer Mount Royal. It is not impossible even now, 



72 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

looking down from the green heights over the busy city 
with its chimneys and its steeples and its muffled rattle and 
hum, to think of it as the eager Frenchman saw it, — a 
vast expanse of foliage, broken by the fields of maize, by 
the long houses of the Indians, and by the silver flood of 
the St. Lawrence, then more green beyond, until the dis- 
tant forest melted in a line of blue hills away off to the 
south. It was the first survey of New France, a hundred 
years before the valiant Maisonneuve founded Montreal. 
But the time was not ripe for permanent settlement, and 
Cartier, like Roberval and de la Roche who came after 
him, was only an opener of the way to others. 

Evil times came then to France, and as Catholic and 
Huguenot tore at each other's throats, little thought was 
given to the lands over seas. But the close of the century 
brought Henry of Navarre and peace, and in the return 
of national life and vigor that came then, there arose once 
more an interest in the domains across the Atlantic, — 
domains that still awaited the hero brave enough and 
staunch enough to break the bonds of savagery and build 
a Christian state in the western continent. Courage and 
endurance beyond the common the task surely demanded, 
but a man was found equal to the need. In the spring 
of 1608, Samuel de Champlain, Father of New France, 
entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence with a commission from 



THE GREAT DUEL WITH FRANCE 73 

King Henry. Sailing past the mouth of the Saguenay, 
past the Isle of Bacchus, past the beautiful falls of Mont- 
morency, he came to the rugged cliff where Cartier had 
visited the Indian city of Stadacona. Five years before, 
he had sailed through the narrow passage between Que- 
bec and the Heights of Levi on to Hochelaga, but now 
he landed, and here on the low slope between cliff and 
river were built the rude huts and walls of the capital of 
New France. 

Champlain at first scarcely realized the acute questions 
of diplomacy and statesmanship hidden in the leafy wil- 
derness of Canada, and as they began to arise he had to 
decide them with less knowledge of the savage politics of 
America than we have of innermost Africa. His fate- 
ful alliance with the Algonquins and Hurons against the 
Iroquois might have been undertaken less promptly had 
he been aware of the power and ferocity of the great 
Confederacy. But in the main we associate the name of 
the founder of Quebec with simple manliness and cour- 
age, with justice and exhaustless patience in dealing both 
with his restless companions and his savage allies. Un- 
der his fostering care the little colony took root, sent 
out explorers and missionaries, and made its influence felt 
as far west as Lake Huron and the boundaries of the 
Iroquois country. Under him, too, purity and uniform- 



74 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

ity of faith was secured by the exclusion of all heretics. 
So the contrast with the English colonies was made com- 
plete. The one was Catholic; the other Protestant. The 
one made alliances with the Indians and sought to create 
a league which might secure the friendship of all the 
Canadian tribes and the destruction of the Iroquois; the 
other held sternly aloof from savage entanglements, and 
later on only half-heartedly accepted the alliance even of 
the Six Nations. New France neglected agriculture, 
threw her energy into the fur trade, penetrated the in- 
terior, planted trading posts and forts at countless strate- 
gic points, and trusted to the mother country for pro- 
visions and for a market; New England sent out explorers 
rarely and with hesitation, paid but indifferent attention 
to the fur trade, cleared the land, cultivated the soil 
and depended on the home island for the conveniences 
of life, not its necessaries. In her own way, then, reflect- 
ing old France in her faith, her boldness, her high-hearted 
enterprise, her chivalry, her contempt for the Philistine 
virtues of the Massachusetts farmer or the Virginia 
planter, Canada grew and ever took a firmer grip on the 
soil which she was winning by the heroism of her pioneers 
and watering with the blood of her martyrs. 

One other element in the situation, and this a funda- 
mental one, must be noted now, before we come to the 



THE GREAT DUEL WITH FRANCE 75 

definite conflict between the two races. We have already 
seen the democratic spirit, the determined individualism 
of the English colonies. They reflected and continued, 
as was inevitable, the deepest tendencies of their race. In 
just such measure was New France the reflection of the 
society and the monarchy — then at the height of their 

glory which yet bore in them the seeds of death, and 

were to perish in ghastly ruin only a century after the great 
deeds of Frontenac and La Salle. In the new world as 
in the old were found seigneurs and vassals. In the new 
world as in the old was popular initiative held sternly 
down. As Richelieu and Colbert labored to build France 
into a military despotism, effective and benevolent, but 
absolutely centralized, so did their representatives make 
Canada a military unit, reflecting the centralization, the 
social divisions of the mother land. The States-General, 
the ancient representative assembly of France, had met 
last in 1614. It was not to be summoned again until 
the eve of the Revolution. But Count Frontenac, great- 
est of all the governors of New France, thought it best 
to summon a miniature States-General at Quebec, and did 
so in the autumn of 1672. His admonition on the sub- 
ject from Colbert sufficiently shows the attitude of the 
government at home : 



76 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

" The assembling and division of all the inhabitants into three 
orders or estates which you have done for the purpose of having 
them take the oath of fidelity, may have been productive of good 
just then. But it is well for you to observe that you are always 
to follow, in the government and management of that country, 
the forms in force here; and as our kings have considered it for 
a long time advantageous to their service not to assemble the 
States-General of their kingdom, with a view perhaps to abolish 
insensibly that ancient form, you likewise ought rarely, or (to 
speak more correctly) never, give that form to the corporate 
body of the inhabitants of that country." 

That is to say, autocracy was to prevail in the new 
world as in the old. Even the relics of feudalism, while 
in form they were to be transplanted over the seas, were 
yet to be subordinated more completely to the central 
authority. Lords and vassals alike were to form part 
of a political and military machine such as Colbert was 
striving with all the force of his genius to create in France. 
At home the prejudices and privileges of ages, the sus- 
picion and wealth of a great middle class, the jealousy 
and power of the Church and the nobility made absolute 
centralization impossible. In America there were no 
such obstacles. As De Tocqueville acutely remarked, 
the system of Louis XIV in its merits and its defects may 
be best studied not in France but in Canada. 

Old France was divided for purposes of administration 
into thirty-five generalites or intendances, each cared for 



THE GREAT DUEL WITH FRANCE 77 

by a governor — as the military head of the district — 
and an Intendant, whose duties covered every conceivable 
interest in which a paternal government can possibly 
interfere with its children. So it was in Canada. New 
France was simply made an ideal generalite. Her gov- 
ernor protected her from the Indians, and marshaled her 
resources for the great duel with the English. The In- 
tendant nursed the fur trade, collected and disbursed the 
revenues, and watched over the material welfare of the 
colony. The genius and aims of Colbert were ideally re- 
flected in the great Intendant Talon. The potential evils 
and corruption of the system were illustrated by the in- 
famous Bigot. But in any case, for good or evil, Can- 
ada was the faithful copy of a military despotism — 
united, energetic, high-spirited, but utterly lacking in the 
abundant life, the reserve force, the individual initiative, 
the possibilities of indefinite and irresistible expansion 
that lay in the divided, quarrelsome, but independent and 
liberty-loving colonies to the south. 

Long before King William formed the Grand Alli- 
ance against Louis XIV the coming war between New 
France and New England was foreseen by the keen-eyed 
rulers of Quebec. For a brief period about the middle 
of the seventeenth century the destruction of the Hurons 
(1648) and the increased danger from the Iroquois after 



7 8 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

they began to purchase arms from the Dutch on the 
Hudson caused exploration to languish. But during 
Talon's tenure of the office of Intendant fur-traders and 
explorers crept farther and farther west until they could 
bring news of the copper mines of Lake Superior, and 
believed themselves to be not more than three hundred 
leagues from the Vermilion Sea, or fifteen hundred from 
China. Interested as the Intendant was in trade and its 
extension, his reports are more than commercial bulletins. 
Already the design was taking shape at Quebec to pene- 
trate west and south until connection might be made with 
the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven years before the great 
voyage of La Salle, Daumont de Saint Lusson, with due 
formality of hymns, the planting of a cross, and the fix- 
ing of a plate engraved with the arms of France, took 
formal possession at Sault Ste. Marie of the Great West: 

In the name of the Most High, Mighty, and Redoubted Mon- 
arch, Louis, Fourteenth of that name, Most Christian King of 
France and of Navarre, I take possession of this place, Sainte 
Marie du Saut, as also of Lakes Huron and Superior, the Island 
of Manitoulin, and all countries, lakes, rivers, and streams con- 
tiguous and adjacent thereto, — both those which have been 
discovered and those which may be discovered hereafter, in all 
their length and breadth, bounded on the one side by the seas 
of the North and of the West, and on the other by the South 
Sea, etc. etc. 



THE GREAT DUEL WITH FRANCE 79 

And these were no mere high sounding words. The 
voyages of Joliet, Marquette and La Salle confirmed the 
foresight of Talon. The Great Lakes and the Missis- 
sippi valley were annexed by virtue not of chance discov- 
ery but of keen statesmanship and heroic enterprise. 
And with the administration of Frontenac began in ear- 
nest the building of the chain of fortresses which was to 
hem in the English and secure for France three-quarters 
of the American continent. 

When the seventeenth century closed the war was well 
begun. In 1690 the English had made their second 1 at- 
tempt to take Quebec, and had been foiled by the fiery 
courage of Frontenac. All along the frontier blazing 
villages and roving war parties told of the beginning of 
the bitter fight for supremacy between two races who 
had thrown away the thought of compromise. And not 
merely the main issue but the strategy of the war soon 
became clear. The interior of North America was ac- 
cessible by a very few clearly marked paths. There were 
two great waterways, the St. Lawrence and the Missis- 
sippi. Both were in the hands of France. There was a 
third river, the Hudson, which reached at least part of 
the way into the interior and which was controlled by the 

ir The first was the successful one of Kirke in 1629, resulting in a brief 
English occupation of the fortress. It was restored to France by treaty. 



80 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

English. From its headwaters one could cross easily to 
Lake George and Lake Champlain, or penetrate the 
woods by a well-known Indian road to Lake Ontario. 
But the Lake Champlain route was blocked by Crown 
Point and Ticonderoga. If the English did succeed in 
reaching Lake Ontario and building Oswego there, they 
were still prevented from further progress by Fort 
Frontenac and Fort Niagara at the two ends of the lake. 
Still another highway remained. From Virginia and 
Pennsylvania one could take a straight road through the 
Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies along the passes now 
marked by the Baltimore and Ohio and the Pennsylvania 
railroads, connect with the Ohio, and so reach the Mis- 
sissippi and the West. Here indeed Dinwiddie and 
Washington with their Virginians almost thrust a wedge 
into the French line. But the energy of the leaders was 
ill supported by the cautious and jealous colonists. A 
sharp passage of arms left the French triumphant, and just 
where the full flood of the Ohio begins Duquesne planted 
in 1754 the fort which he hoped would prove the final 
bar to the western expansion of the English. So here 
lay the situation: Quebec, Ticonderoga, Frontenac, 
Niagara, Duquesne, represented so many locked gate- 
ways. Before English expansion would be possible these 
must be forced. Sixty or seventy thousand Frenchmen 



THE GREAT DUEL WITH FRANCE 81 

were seeking to restrain within the limits of the Atlantic 
seaboard twenty times their number of Englishmen. 
Unit, skillful leadership, military spirit, and the alliance 
of countless Indian tribes gave France first possession of 
the field and an advantage throughout that almost count- 
erbalanced her rival's weight of numbers. And so mat- 
ters stood when the final death grapple began with 
Braddock's march in 1755. 

In one sense we have just begun our story, and yet here 
we close it. To tell the details of the first blunders and 
failures, and then tell how William Pitt came to power 
with his dauntless courage, his gift of inspiring others 
to glorious achievements; how his commanders came out 
to replace men of the stamp of Braddock and Loudon; 
how after two terrible years of frontier war during which 
bushrangers burned and ravaged and the colonists lost 
even the vantage points they had gained the tide began 
to turn; how Forbes and Howe, Amherst and Wolfe 
broke barrier after barrier; how there came at last that 
glorious and terrible September morning in 1759 when 
the dying Wolfe heard the cries of victory ringing in his 
ears that sounded the knell of France's empire in the 
New World — to tell all this would be only to repeat 
what may be learned in any school book. We have tried 
rather to see what was the issue of the conflict, what were 



82 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

the ideals of the combatants, what it meant to the world 
that the expansion of the French race in America should 
be checked and that of the English permitted to go on in 
full tide. Not that the duel with France was over with 
the fall of Quebec. The defeated power was able to 
strike a fierce blow at the victor twenty years later, and 
for a moment in the day of Napoleon there was a possi- 
bility once more of a French Louisiana. Yet the critical 
years of the conflict were those that lay between Wash- 
ington's skirmish at Great Meadows and the Battle of 
the Plains of Abraham. Then it was that the vast conti- 
nent for which Spaniard and Frenchman and Englishman 
had dreamed and fought and suffered passed irrevocably 
to the restless, stubborn, free-born countrymen of Raleigh 
and the Pilgrim Fathers. 



ROBERT CLIVE AND THE BEGINNING OF THE 
INDIAN EMPIRE 

Before we go any farther it may be as well to note one 
general characteristic of British expansion that might 
escape a critic who regards the empire only in its present 
aspect. This is the lack of conscious construction, the 
lack, so to speak, of any imperial architect. The Ger- 
man writers and orators who see Britain as a sinister, 
Machiavellian robber-state that has acquired domains 
the world over by craft and brute force have in mind the 
politic foresight by which the Great Elector, Frederick II, 
and Bismarck consolidated Brandenburg and East Prus- 
sia, acquired Silesia, divided Poland, annexed Schleswig- 
Holstein, Alsace-Lorraine and Hanover, creating a great 
state that might be nucleus and leader of a German em- 
pire. To a Prussian, state action is the obvious means 
of state expansion, and to him it might seem absurd to 
speak of the British Empire as a sort of colossal acci- 
dent, — as absurd as if we were to speak of Cologne 
Cathedral as a chance heap of stones. Yet if the word 

83 



84 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

" accident " would seem not quite accurate it is at least 
true to say that the empire is less like a structure than 
like an organism, less like a city than a forest, its seeds 
falling, dying, sprouting, as heedlessly as the acorns or 
the pine-cones. It grew, in the main, simply by inner 
force and vitality. It was planned as little as the present 
extent of the American republic was planned by the set- 
tlers of Plymouth and Jamestown or even by Washing- 
ton and his comrades. Only in comparatively recent 
times has the British Empire become so far conscious 
of itself as to develop a policy which might be termed im- 
perialism. And only within the last generation has there 
appeared a rational imperial patriotism as evidence that 
the empire is a living unit, created not by its rulers but 
by the " iron hands and patient hearts " of a free people 
and slowly welded by them into a world-wide nation. 

It is true, of course, that in British as in American 
expansion intense rivalry, momentary or local ambitions, 
have developed at certain times a lust for conquest which 
might be called " imperialism," an outburst of warlike or 
acquisitive spirit such as occurs inevitably — for good or 
ill — in the lives of peoples as in the lives of individuals. 
But these have been immediate reactions to a definite sit- 
uation, with little or no conscious relation to any compre- 
hensive plan. Only now and then, in brief prophetic 



BEGINNING OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 85 

flashes, did some statesman or thinker like William Pitt 
have a momentary vision of the possible outcome. In the 
main soldiers, statesmen, sailors, merchants, adventurers, 
farmers or missionaries were intent each on his own 
problem. The victories of Wolfe had no apparent rela- 
tion to those of Clive; the farmers who cleared their land 
and sowed their seed in Ontario recked little of their 
brethren in New South Wales or Cape Colony; Living- 
stone followed the course of the Zambesi with no thought 
of the fur-trading pioneers of British Columbia; and 
James Cook sailed along the coast of Australia unaware 
of the Boston tea-party and the blunders of Lord North 
on the other side of the world. Never was there any 
one brain guiding them all. Indeed when the home gov- 
ernment did interfere it was as a rule to check expansion 
or to make blunders in ignorant moments of caution or 
equally ignorant moments of excitement. So that the 
heroes of British expansion have not been statesmen of 
the Frederick or Bismarck type, but the men of action, 
the Wolfes, Clives, and Livingstones, cooperating with 
traders, missionaries and home-seekers. 

Let us repeat then that even when statesmen did assert 
any significant control, take some definite action towards 
empire, conquering, annexing, or regulating, it was in- 
variably to solve some specific problem, to avert some 



86 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

specific danger. Even these cases are rare and are in- 
finitely unimportant compared with the slow action of 
the millions of traders and settlers. But they have 
their part in the great drama and must not be ignored. 
So in the age of Elizabeth English sailors and English 
statesmen struck anywhere and in any way at the power 
of Spain, and founded Virginia partly to " put a byt in 
the anchent enemy's mouth.'' So again in the age of 
Chatham came the great conflict with France and the 
conquest of Canada. So once more in the second half 
of the nineteenth century the rapid advance of Russia 
in central Asia led to a " Forward Policy " and to con- 
quests in Asia which might not otherwise have been 
dreamed of. And yet it remains true as a general prin- 
ciple that the empire was not created by policy or 
statecraft; that only when it was practically completed 
did England or the world become conscious of what it 
meant; and that if we wish to see just how it came to be 
and reason from actual facts we must put aside the large 
generalizations of recent years. Many of the fictions 
in regard to imperialism disappear if we study the work 
and motives and problems of such pioneers as Cook or 
Clive or Livingstone, and see how easily, how insensibly 
step led to step and problem to problem until all at 
once where a little trading post had stood, where a little 



BEGINNING OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 87 

ship had cast anchor, where a solitary missionary had 
toiled and preached, there arose an empire. 

Towards the close of the year 1744 Robert Clive 
landed at Madras as a clerk in the service of the East 
India Company. He was not quite twenty years of age, 
and he had so far shown little aptitude for anything 
but mischief. Essentially a lover of action, restless in 
times of quiet, only calm in the midst of excitement and 
turmoil, he was ill adapted for the office life designed 
for him by his father, and the boy was practically con- 
sidered a failure at home when he took passage for India. 
He himself welcomed the change with the thoughtless 
joy of a restless mind. To stay in England meant in- 
tolerable monotony and drudgery. India was seen 
through the haze of distance, and its remoteness, its 
fabled glories, and the element of wildness, uncertainty 
and possible danger associated with the East, all formed 
an attraction not to be resisted. But sad indeed was 
the disappointment of the eager lad when he reached 
his destination and settled down to his duties there. His 
office work was as dreary in Madras as in London or 
Liverpool, with infinitely less opportunity for relief. He 
accepted it with the quiet of despair, attempted suicide 
once, it is said, and only found a measure of solace in 
the library of a kindly superior. 



88 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Two years passed before relief came, — a relief that 
was the only possible one to this mind that reveled in 
the shock and storm of war and rusted in the quiet of 
peace. The war of the Austrian Succession begun by 
Frederick's invasion of Silesia in 1740 had involved 
England and France in the first quarrel that the two 
rivals had known since the days of Marlborough. A 
French squadron appeared off Madras and compelled 
the town's surrender. Clive with a few others escaped 
capture and so avoided the necessity of giving their parole 
not to bear arms during the remainder of the war. The 
arrival of an English fleet made the conflict in the East 
a fairly equal one, and at last in the tempest of battle 
the young clerk found his vocation and won his spurs. 
When the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle closed the war in 
1748 Clive went back to his desk with a new hope and 
a new interest in life. For to one of his penetration it 
was evident that in India the struggle was far from 
ended. Rather was it barely started. Affairs were 
brewing in that year of the Treaty that boded stormy 
times in the days to come, and it would be strange indeed 
if some vague dreams did not flit through Give's mind 
of the glory that would be his when the cloud should 
break. 



BEGINNING OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 89 

Now let us glance for a moment at the map. One may 
think of India as shaped like a great, irregular kite, 
with an area almost equal to European Russia and a 
population of about three hundred millions. Its greatest 
distance from north to south and from east to west is 
about nineteen hundred miles. So much for the figures 
that we need to get our first bearings. Guarding the 
great curve of the north runs the vast double range of 
snow-capped mountains, the highest in the world, whose 
diverse names we group for convenience under the inclu- 
sive one of Himalaya. From them run the famous rivers, 
the Ganges, the Indus, the Brahmaputra, which have 
made the plains of northern India one of the most fertile 
and populous regions in the world. Fertile, populous, 
wealthy, — therefore fair spoil for the robber and the 
soldier of fortune, and so the story of these river plains 
is one of terror and ruin, — a record that would, one 
might think, dye the soil red from Lahore to Delhi and 
from Delhi to Calcutta. South of the plains runs irregu- 
larly from east to west a line of hills which we may con- 
veniently, if not quite accurately, group under the name 
properly attached to the western part of the range, the 
Vindhya Hills. Here begins a rugged and irregular 
tableland extending south to Cape Comorin and bounded 



9 o IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

on the east and west by the Ghats, — a Hindu word sig- 
nifying steps. This is the Deccan. 1 On the west (Mala- 
bar) side the great landing stairs leave only a narrow 
strip of coast, dotted with cities like Cochin, Calicut or 
greatest of all, Bombay,-^- cities whose merchants for 
hundreds of years have traded the products of India for 
the rich cargoes brought from Arabia, Persia, Africa 
and Europe. On the eastern side the edge of the hill 
country is more irregular, and one great curve inland of 
the Eastern Ghats has left the great plain — the Carnatic 
— which has been world-famous ever since Macaulay 
wrote his essay on Clive. Here, in 1748, were situated 
the English Company's Fort St. George, at Madras, 
and a rival French post a little farther south at Pondi- 
cherry. And the governor of Pondicherry was the astute 
and daring Dupleix. 

India was in a state closely bordering on anarchy. 
More than two hundred years before (1526) a valiant 
descendant of Tamerlane, already conqueror of Samar- 
cand and Cabul, invaded the Punjab and defeated the 
Afghan ruler of Delhi in the battle of Panipat Under 
the able rule of Akbar, Shah Jehan, and Aurungzeb, the 

1 The Deccan does not, strictly, include Mysore, Travancore, Cochin or 
the strip of coast between the Western Ghats and the sea, nor does it now 
include the Carnatic as it practically did in the time of Clive. 




Cape Comorin 



Indian 



ocean 



WMS. ENS; CO., N.Y. 



SOUTHERN INDIA IN 1751 



BEGINNING OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 91 

power of the Mogul emperors became practically supreme 
in India. But for the welding of the peninsula into one 
permanently united state the constructive genius of the 
Moguls was inadequate, and with the death of Aurungzeb 
in 1707 the colossal structure began to fall apart. When 
Clive landed at Madras the Emperor at Delhi was still 
nominally supreme lord of India. But the great Hindu 
confederacy of the Mahrattas was dominant and still ris- 
ing in the west; the princes of Rajputana were practically 
independent; and the Mohammedan governors of 
provinces, great and small, were more and more each 
year ignoring their supposed master and busily strength- 
ening their own power. Of these new sovereigns the 
most powerful was doubtless the Nizam of Hyderabad, 
Subahdar of the Deccan, and among the subordinate 
chiefs who owned the supremacy of the Nizam the 
greatest was the Nawab of the Carnatic, whose capital, 
Arcot, was about seventy miles from Madras. The orig- 
inal franchises of the Europeans had been obtained, of 
course, from the Emperor at Delhi. But it was to the 
local prince, the Nawab of Arcot, that both Madras and 
Pondicherry paid tribute and owed the respect due to the 
practical lord of the soil on which they were permitted 
to trade. So it was this potentate who felt called upon 
to interfere when his English and French tenants fell to 



92 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

blows, and who when the French took Madras sent ten 
thousand troops to eject the French garrison. On the 
banks of the river Adyar near St. Thome this army was 
met and wholly defeated by two hundred and thirty 
Frenchmen and seven hundred sepoys sent out by Dupleix, 
— and thus decisively did the French governor learn his 
first lesson in conquest. 

Dupleix was both ambitious and resolute, but he had 
need of great caution, for his resources were lamentably 
small and he had no reason to expect aid from France. 
Yet a tactful application of the Roman motto, Divide et 
Impera, " divide and rule," was by no means unknown in 
the annals of the Portuguese and French in India. To 
use diamond to cut diamond, to divide the native forces, 
to throw himself on the weaker side, and so conquer by 
means of the natives themselves while yet holding the 
balance of power was an experiment too obvious not to 
occur to the quick mind of Dupleix. And a golden op- 
portunity came almost before he had begun to seek it. 
In May, 1748, Nizam-ul-Mulk, Subahdar of the Deccan, 
died, leaving his great dominion to his second son. But 
a rival appeared in the person of one of the late Subah- 
dar's grandsons, Muzaffar Jang, who further associated 
with himself a claimant to the subordinate throne of the 
Carnatic in the person of one Chanda Sahib. Now 



BEGINNING OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 93 

Chanda Sahib knew something of the value that would 
accrue from an alliance with the formidable alien traders, 
and it was no difficult matter for Dupleix to come to 
an understanding with the two pretenders. With the 
help of French troops a blow was struck, ruthless and 
decisive. The ruling Nawab was defeated and killed, 
and Chanda Sahib stood Nawab of the Carnatic. In 
December, 1750, the plot was completed, and with the 
proclamation of Muzaffar Jang at Hyderabad the plan 
of action devised and guided throughout by Dupleix 
'seemed to be consummated. He practically ruled both 
in Hyderabad and in Arcot through nominees of his 
own. And thus matters stood at the beginning of the 
year 1751. 

In the meantime the English at Madras looked on 
at all these doings with some perturbation of spirit. 
They were not in the councils of the wily Frenchman 
and could not wholly see the drift of his connection with 
the intriguing princes. But they understood enough to 
see that it was not to their advantage that Chanda 
Sahib's accession to the sovereignty of the Carnatic 
should go unchallenged, that the prince on whom they 
were dependent should be the puppet of their declared 
enemy. So they did the one thing that seemed possible 
under the circumstances. Hesitatingly adopting the 



94 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

methods of Dupleix, they gave their support to a rival 
candidate, Mohammed Ali, son of Chanda Sahib's dead 
predecessor. But no man guided affairs at Madras with 
the craft and energy of the watchful Dupleix. The 
aid sent to Mohammed Ali was rendered almost useless 
by the hesitation, the nervous uncertainty, the irresolu- 
tion of the men who sent it, — men good and worthy, 
but inadequate to a crisis such as this. The officers 
placed in xommand of such troops as were dispatched 
were of less than ordinary capacity. And by the time that 
Chanda Sahib's ally Muzaffar Jang saw himself safely 
installed on the throne of Nizam-ul-Mulk, Mohammed 
Ali and his few adherents were being closely besieged by 
the victorious Nawab in the fortress of Trichinopoly. 
The English soldiers and sepoys who were with him were 
as discouraged and hopeless as their chief. It seemed a 
matter not of years or months, but of weeks when France 
should be as supreme in southern India as the Dutch in 
Java, and the English traders expelled from Madras as 
they had been a century and a quarter before from the 
Spice Islands. 

Clive had been away from Madras on special service. 
He returned early in 175 1, finding matters in the lament- 
able state just sketched. His record now justified Mr. 
Saunders, the newly arrived governor, in giving him a 



BEGINNING OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 95 

commission as captain, and he bade farewell with en- 
thusiasm to his old civilian life. In July he was com- 
missioned with a brother officer to take a detachment of 
reinforcements to Trichinopoly and to return at once with 
a report on the situation. This he did, and his report 
was as bad as it well could be. The whole force of 
Chanda Sahib lay before the doomed fortress, and no 
one among the besiegers or besieged doubted the out- 
come. But the young officer who laid these dismal facts 
before the authorities at Madras was far from hopeless. 
As the Romans had compelled Carthage to recall the ter- 
rible Hannibal from Italy by carrying the war into Africa, 
so Clive proposed to relieve Trichinopoly by attacking 
Arcot, Chanda Sahib's capital. 

Mr. Saunders embraced the plan with enthusiasm. He 
had only three hundred and fifty English soldiers at his 
disposal, but two hundred of them he entrusted to Clive, 
and on the 26th of August, 1751, the young captain set 
out on the enterprise that was to make his name a house- 
hold word in every county in England before he was a 
year older. He had with him the two hundred raw 
English soldiers, three hundred sepoys and three small 
field pieces. As he approached Arcot he learned that 
the garrison was composed of one thousand two hundred 
native soldiers, and found out what he could of the nature 



96 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

and plan of the fortifications. Then pushing on he 
reached his destination on the 31st in a fierce storm, 
captured the fort without the loss of a man, strengthened 
it for defense and within the next week made two suc- 
cessful flying attacks on bodies of the enemy that were 
lying within striking distance. Then he devoted himself 
to further securing his position, had some eighteen- 
pounder guns sent him from Madras and prepared for a 
siege. 

Already much had been done. All those chiefs who 
had been lukewarm in their allegiance to Chanda Sahib or 
who had been wavering between the rival princes at- 
tached a significance to Clive's feat of arms which would 
have seemed to a casual observer altogether exaggerated. 
Their desire was, as a matter of fact, to range themselves 
with the winning side. Until the capture of Arcot this 
seemed to be beyond question the side of Dupleix and 
Chanda Sahib. But now this sign of a new boldness and 
enterprise in the hitherto inactive and irresolute Eng- 
lish, this appearance of a leader whose achievement was 
appraised at its full value by the acute minds of the 
Oriental warriors made a change in the whole situation. 
Some decided that this was indeed the turn of the tide. 
The powerful Sultan of Mysore declared at once for 



BEGINNING OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 97 

Mohammed Ali, and with him went prince after prince 
in the very neighborhood of Trichinopoly. Chanda 
Sahib saw the danger. A large force was sent north to 
join the troops that were gathering in the vicinity of 
Arcot under Raja Sahib, the Nawab's son, and on the 
23rd of September an army of about ten thousand men 
laid siege to the fortress garrisoned by the little band 
of Englishmen and sepoys under Clive. Ill supplied 
with either ammunition or food, the defenders stood their 
ground and beat back attack after attack with a tenacity, 
a steady resourcefulness that soon turned the eyes of every 
statesman and fighting man in India to the mud walls of 
Arcot. At last after a siege of fifty days Raja Sahib 
realized that he must conquer at once or accept defeat. 
For every day of failure weakened the allegiance of 
Chanda Sahib's supporters and made new allies for his 
rival, and word came that the renowned Morari Rao, 
most dreaded of Mahratta chieftains, had decided to 
march south with ten thousand of the best cavalry in 
India to relieve Arcot. 

The 14th of November was the day of the festival of 
Moharrum, 1 sacred to every Mohammedan in India as 

1 See Kipling's story " On the City Wall " for a picturesque description 
of this festival and of the fierce emotions which it awakens even in our 
own day. 



98 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

the anniversary of the death of Hosein, son of Ali, com- 
panion and friend of the Prophet of God. It was the 
time above all others when the soldiers of Raja Sahib 
might be trusted to fight against the unbelievers with the 
mad fanaticism, the impetuous, self-forgetful valor that 
had made the followers of Mohammed masters of 
Arabia, Egtfpc, Syria, and Persia less than ten years after 
the death of their prophet. A breach had been made 
in the walls, and stimulating the zeal of his men to a 
transport of religious fury not to be understood by the 
colder minds of the West, the attacking chief hurled his 
men against the ramparts manned by the weary little band 
commanded and inspired to herosim by Clive. But the 
wild ferocity of the Mohammedan was met by the calm 
fatalism of the Hindu braced and strengthened by the 
stern resolution of the English and the genius of their 
leader. There was an hour of fighting too tremendous, 
too devastating to last. Then the furious wave of at- 
tack swept sullenly back, and in the darkness of night the 
whole force of the defeated prince began a retreat which 
meant not only the ruin of a petty sovereign, but the col- 
lapse of all the ambitious plans of Dupleix for a French 
empire in India. Within a year from the capture of 
Arcot, Chanda Sahib was dead, Mohammed Ali was 
Nawab of the Carnatic, and the English council at 



BEGINNING OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 99 

Madras held the balance of power in India south of the 
Vindhya Hills. 

In order to entirely catch the spirit of all these doings 
we should, perhaps, approach their study after a careful 
preliminary reading of the Arabian Nights. If we could 
see the world for a little through the eyes of one of those 
whimsical, despotic, alternately generous and fiendish 
caliphs and sultans who awed, attracted, repelled and 
wholly fascinated our minds in childhood, and who still 
exercise something of their old dominion over the imag- 
ination of some of us, we could better appreciate perhaps 
the problems of a restless, impetuous English youth 
dropped with little preparation into a cobweb of Asiatic 
intrigue. Little as our minds may take to that atmos- 
phere of subtlety, treachery and cruelty out of a fairy 
tale, it is yet Instructive. And as we shift our scene now 
to Bengal we must prepare for a little more of that murky 
air of terror and deceit which we associate — unfairly, in 
a sense, but not unnaturally, with Asia. Only perhaps we 
may move more quickly, endeavoring simply to put into 
clear light the swift succession of events by which the 
foundations of the British Empire in India were laid. 
All through we may see this or that Englishman, — Clive, 
Hastings, or later on, Cornwallis, Wellesley, Dalhousie, 
Lawrence and the rest — try for a time in bewildered 



ioo IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

puzzlement to understand the intrigues and adjust himself 
to the point of view of this world so fundamentally dif- 
ferent from England, and then more or less suddenly 
according to temperament break abruptly away from it 
all and in impatient wrath cut the tangled knot with his 
sword. 

As a matter of fact two utterly different ethical and 
political systems were seeking adjustment. In the long 
run the speculative and devious-minded Indian bows down 
in amazed awe before the man who dares to act. In 
intrigue few sons of the West can cope with the Asiatic. 
When they try, even when they succeed, as both Clive 
and Hastings did, it is partly because even the subtlety of 
India is lulled to a certain carelessness by the comparative 
artlessness and straight-forwardness of the European, and 
the result, successful at the time, undermines the very 
thing which is the strength of England in the East. 
Nine times out of ten she has refused to touch the tor- 
tuous diplomacy of enemies or allies, and has pursued her 
even way, doing her best to understand the point of view 
of her associates but above all things adhering to her 
spoken and written word. Sometimes an English leader 
has added too much obstinacy to his native honesty, some- 
times he has failed to cut his way out of the web sur- 
rounding him in time, sometimes he has erred in the 



BEGINNING OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 101 

opposite direction and resorted to force when patience 
would have served as well to dissipate an intrigue, and 
sometimes his placid confidence and his inability to read 
the signs about him have brought ruinous disaster and 
suffering. But in the main England's policy in India 
has been successful not in so far as she has learned the 
subtlety of her allies or her enemies there but in so far 
as she has adhered to her own best traditions of honesty. 
And those whom she has conquered have fallen primarily 
because they would not understand that ill faith — that 
traditional weapon of Asiatic diplomacy — meant in their 
dealings with England a swift and deadly reward. The 
East India Company had been formed for trade and 
trade alone. Trade requires above all things security and 
good faith. When these vanished the traders became 
their own policemen. And to police India meant con- 
quest. 

Early in 1756 the English traders at Calcutta heard 
of the beginning of another war with France. Remem- 
bering the formidable activity of their enemies in the 
eastern seas a decade before, they proceeded to fortify the 
city, for the Nawab of Bengal was as unable to protect 
his European tenants at Calcutta as the Nawab of the 
Carnatic had been to protect Madras in 1745-6. But the 
Nawab of Bengal unfortunately did not realize his help- 



102 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

lessness, or rather the unreliable character of his over- 
lordship. He was a young man utterly spoiled by ab- 
solute power and degraded by dissipation beyond the 
capacity to reason or investigate. He issued an angry 
order for the destruction of the English fortifications. 
The order was not obeyed. In a fit of passionate energy 
the young Nawab, Suraj-u-Dowlah, seized the English 
trading post near his capital and marched on Calcutta. 
Utterly unprepared for defense, the city held out for four 
days, and then all the English residents who could get 
away fled in boats to such ships as could be reached in 
the river Hugh. But one hundred and forty-five Eng- 
lishmen and one lady fell into the hands of the angry 
prince. These were questioned without avail in regard 
to the treasure which he believed to be hidden somewhere 
about the company's offices, and then were ordered to 
be safely guarded for the night. Not by his orders, 
though no one was punished later on, the one hundred 
and forty-six unhappy captives were thrust into a room 
about twenty feet long by fourteen wide, with two small 
grated windows. It was a hot summer night, the 20th 
of June, in a city abandoned in summer to-day by every 
European who can possibly leave, almost intolerable un- 
der the best of conditions. The horror of the Black 



BEGINNING OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 103 

Hole of Calcutta is best undescribed. Twenty-two men 
and the one woman survived till morning. 

On that very day, June 20, 1756, Clive landed at 
Madras from a brief stay in England. As soon as the 
news of the Calcutta disaster arrived he was commis- 
sioned to go to Bengal at once with a small but adequate 
force to take such action as might be necessary. He soon 
compelled the Nawab to withdraw and to make such 
amends as could be made, but this was obviously in- 
sufficient. Clive was a soldier by instinct. Statecraft 
puzzled him, and yet the same directness of thought, the 
same capacity to see the essential thing and to estimate 
possibilities that guided him on the field of battle helped 
him now to deal with Suraj-u-Dowlah. He took some 
months to consider the situation and to attend to an in- 
finite number of details, but by the coming of spring he 
had reached his decision. Scarcely a week had passed 
without some new proof of the Nawab's treacherous, 
shifty, altogether unreliable character. At home, from 
a seat in Parliament or in his own study, Clive or any 
one else might have argued on many grounds for non- 
interference. He might have maintained that if the 
company's servants chose to trade in Bengal they must 
accept the risk. On the spot, however, it may be ques- 



io 4 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

tioned whether such reasoning ever occurred to him. 
It must be remembered that the Nawab and his emperor 
at Delhi were themselves foreign invaders, no more 
Hindus than Clive himself. They ruled by right of 
force, as did every Mohammedan prince in India. When 
Suraj-u=Dowlah exerted that force to wantonly destroy 
a settlement whose rights were based on formal charter, 
he placed himself beyond the pale of every law but that 
of self-preservation. His excesses had made him many 
enemies among his own chiefs, and Clive simply followed 
the line partly indicated by Dupleix. He suggested to 
an injured lord, an uncle of the Nawab, that his claims to 
the throne would be supported by the company. In- 
trigue, conspiracy, and counter-conspiracy gave place at 
last to war. And on the field of Plassey, June 26, 1757, 
Clive with three thousand men utterly crushed the great 
army of Suraj-u-Dowlah. As six years before he had 
stood master of the Carnatic, so now — actually if not 
nominally — he was lord of Bengal. 

Clive had solved his problem in his soldier's way, — 
the only way that seemed to him a satisfactory and per- 
manent one. Yet clear and keen as was the mind of the 
great Englishman it may be questioned whether he at 
once saw that if Plassey had cut one knot it had presented 
for untanglement a puzzle beyond comparison more em- 



BEGINNING OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 105 

barrassing. We must remember that he by no means 
intended to conquer Bengal, much less begin the conquest 
of India. Dupleix had dreamed of an Indian Empire. 
Clive was simply the servant of the Company. From his 
point of view the victory of Plassey represented partly a 
measure of self-defense, and partly the punishment of a 
faithless and cruel despot administered by way of warn- 
ing to others, and as a safeguard for the future. With 
a new Nawab on the throne who thoroughly understood 
the reason for his predecessor's humiliation, there might 
be reasonable ground for supposing that all would be 
well. And all might have been well if Clive had re- 
mained, simply because every one, including the Nawab 
himself, knew that he was in the nature of the case su- 
preme. But in February, 1760, the victor of Plassey 
left for England and a situation developed so true to 
human nature that with the accustomed arrogance of those 
who come after the event we marvel that Clive himself 
did not foresee it. Here was a prince burdened with the 
full responsibility of government, yet paying what was 
practically tribute to a company of foreign traders at 
whose very nod he trembled. Here, on the other hand, 
was a group of Englishmen who by their own might and 
steadfastness had struck down an army that outnumbered 
their own twenty times, had deposed a ruler and set up 



106 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

another in his place. The name of power and its re- 
sponsibilities on the one hand, without the fact; actual 
supreme power on the other hand without its burdens. 
Moreover, no law, no treaty, could have made the sit- 
uation essentially more tolerable. Nothing could blot out 
the memory of Plassey. And as long as Plassey was re- 
membered so long would every man in Bengal know that 
in the long run it was more dangerous to anger the 
English than to disobey the Nawab. To please a servant 
of the company was to win the favor of the lords of 
the soil, — lords by the unanswerable argument of fact, 
to remain lords until by fact, not by foolish and meaning- 
less decrees, they were deposed. Few men of any race 
can stand the terrible gift of power without responsibil- 
ity. In the five years between Clive's departure in 1760 
and his return in 1765, the men at Calcutta who with- 
stood temptation, are obscured, alas, by the lurid light 
that has held up that shameful period as the worst in the 
annals of the English in India. 

Only when crime brought its reward of disaster, only 
when the maddened chiefs turned savagely on their op- 
pressors and threatened for a time the destruction of all 
the English in Bengal, did the directors at home realize 
the situation and send out to Calcutta the one man who 
could cope with it. In fierce anger and with an iron hand 



BEGINNING OF THE INDIAN EMPIRE 107 

Clive came to cleanse the foulness and to remedy the evils 
of which he was in a measure the innocent cause. And 
the fundamental remedy that he found, carried to com- 
pletion a little later by Warren Hastings, was — annexa- 
tion. Not annexation in the sense of a wanton seizure 
of power, but simply the acceptance of responsibility 
where power already existed. And so the East India 
Company — like the Nawabs, in nominal subjection to the 
Mogul Emperor — became sovereign ruler of seventy 
million Asiatics. 

How a little later Warren Hastings, who was a clerk 
in Bengal when Suraj-u-Dowlah made his tiger leap on 
Calcutta, became Governor General of the company's 
possessions in India, how he organized them and sought 
to protect them without further conquests, how he saw 
that war would mean victory, victory power, and power 
expansion, and so sought by every means to build up buf- 
fer states that would protect his own frontiers, how this 
fell to the ground and how Hastings found that in 
Benares and in Rohilcund and in the Carnatic he had — 
so to speak — to make war in order to avoid it, and how 
at last Cornwallis and Wellesley accepted the inevitable, 
disobeyed the company's orders and deliberately fought 
and conquered, — all this is a long and strange tale, a 
tale of conquest achieved in direct contravention of orders 



108 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

from home. We have seen the beginning of it. Some 
will blame Clive for what he did and some will not. But 
at least we may know that it was not from lust of empire, 
not from unholy ambition, that he fought and won, but be- 
cause of strange and puzzling tangles of circumstance, 
tangles which he did not create, so that he was com- 
pelled to do something and tried to do what was best. 
History has placed his name beside that of the great 
soldier who died at the gates of Quebec two years after 
Plassey. But Wolfe knew that he was conquering Can- 
ada. Clive could hardly have dreamed that he was 
laying the foundation of an Indian Empire. 



VI 

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 

Though it had encountered great obstacles and over- 
come great difficulties, though it had been largely uncon- 
scious and carried on chiefly by private initiative, never- 
theless British colonial development had been thus far 
uniformly successful. In the second half of the eight- 
eenth century, however, the bubble of expansion burst and 
Great Britain lost the most valuable of all her possessions. 
With the removal of the fear of French aggression on the 
north after 1763, French statesmen had freely predicted 
that the North American colonies would soon break the 
ties which bound them to the mother country. Within 
twenty years these predictions were fulfilled and there 
came into being a new Anglo-Saxon nation, destined to 
outstrip its parent in population and military resources, 
and to lead the world in the organization of free institu- 
tions, the realization of democratic ideals, and the devel- 
opment of the federal idea. 

In the years from 1689 to 1760 the population of the 

109 



no IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

colonies had multiplied eightfold [being in the latter 
year one and one-half million], and the growth of mate- 
rial prosperity had been equally rapid. The conquest of 
a wilderness and the aid rendered in the French wars had 
developed a spirit of self-confidence and achievement that 
had soon found expression in a demand for greater rights 
and a larger measure of self-direction. In the constantly 
growing conflicts between the colonial assemblies and the 
royal governors, the former through the control of the 
purse had steadily gained the day until the latter were 
reduced to mere figure-heads and the colonies were to all 
intents and purposes self-governing. Freedom from con- 
trol of King and Parliament, however, did not mean 
equality within the colonies themselves, for these, like 
England herself, were aristocracies, based on wealth and 
social position. Their privileged classes through travel, 
education abroad, and commerce were in close contact 
with England. They " spake the tongue that Shakespeare 
spake, the faith and morals held that Milton held." 
They prided themselves on their knowledge of English 
literature, on their familiarity with English social life, on 
the maintenance in America of English class distinctions. 
They were in fact miniature Englands. 

Nevertheless America was a land of opportunity far 
more than was England and this was bound to be true so 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION in 

long as large quantities of free land existed. Those who 
resented social inequality and chafed under economic 
oppression could always move into the back country, 
where there were no large estates, no class distinctions, no 
slavery. Here every man worked with his own hands 
and thought himself as good as every other man. The 
" back country " too was the asylum for a large foreign 
immigration of Scotch, Scotch-Irish, Germans and Hugue- 
nots. So large was the movement that in 1775 one-fifth 
of the entire population was non-English. Cheap land, 
easy naturalization, and the absence of the religious jeal- 
ousies prevalent in New England, drew them into the 
Shenandoah Valley and the lands west of the Alleghenies. 
In these regions schools were few and churches scarce, but 
the active life, the contact with nature, and the religious 
fervor which had carried them hither, produced a primi- 
tive society in which most of the elemental virtues and 
some of the elemental vices prevailed but which, on the 
whole, was sound, natural, and invigorating. Here 
American Democracy was born and radicalism flourished. 
Here were reared men like Patrick Henry and Thomas 
Jefferson, who were to carry the Revolution to a success- 
ful issue, and men like Daniel Boone and George Rogers 
Clark, who were to explore and conquer the great hinter- 
land that lay beyond. Conflicts between such rude primi- 



ii2 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

tive communities and the aristocracies of the coast were 
inevitable, but were by no means incompatible, as events 
were to prove, with united action against an outsider 
should occasion demand. 

In fact, the frontier settlements were a potent factor in 
developing a spirit of nationality. Lines of communica- 
tion ran north and south, and the shifting population, the 
intermingling of races, creeds, and shades of thought, 
tended to break down prejudice and provincialism and to 
make men conscious of their fundamental likenesses rather 
than of their superficial differences. Political views, re- 
ligious beliefs, colonial rivalries, class distinctions, all went 
into the crucible from which emerged a sense of common 
interests, common aims, common dangers. 

To this developing spirit of nationality a number of 
other influences contributed, and among them the wave of 
religious emotionalism known as the " Great Awakening " 
must not be overlooked. It had its beginning in the 
Northampton sermons of Jonathan Edwards and in the 
years 1734-44 swept throughout the colonies. " Vital 
religion," as it was called, brought division within creeds, 
bridged barriers between sects, bound together men of 
the same views in different colonies and thus played its 
part in developing unity of feeling. At the same time the 
constantly improved means of communication by travel 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 113 

and through correspondence, after the establishment of 
the General Post Office (17 10), made the relationship be- 
tween the colonies and the back country more regular and 
more intimate. This made possible the wider circulation 
of the newspapers of Philadelphia, New York, Boston, 
and Charleston, making men realize that they were con- 
fronting the same problems and had much the same inter- 
ests all the way from Massachusetts to the Carolinas. 
Added to all this, was the experience of a general cooper- 
ative movement afforded by the French and Indian Wars. 
Through them the colonists became conscious of their 
power, proud of their achievements, and aware of the 
inferiority of the British in handling purely American 
problems. On the other hand the arrogance and conde- 
scension of the British officers deeply irritated and 
wounded many a proud provincial and made him forget his 
colonial jealousy in the deeper sense of a common separ- 
ation from Englishmen. After 1763 American politics 
became distinctly more aggressive in character and much 
of the moral energy and emotional intensity which had 
caused the u Great Awakening " now passed into politics. 
In this transformation the influence of Princeton Col- 
lege was most significant. Founded in 1 746 by men inter- 
ested in the " Great Awakening," it was fortunate enough 
to secure a great president in 1768, in the person of the 



ii4 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Scotchman, John Witherspoon, later a signer of the Decla- 
ration of Independence. Under him was afforded a lib- 
eral training in politics and thought and in the years pre- 
ceding the Revolution, many a young man both from the 
North and the South caught the inspiration and went out 
to instill a deeper interest in history and politics and pro- 
mote the cause of freedom and democracy. Even in 
conservative New England the old Puritan Theocracy 
was slowly democratized, the layman assumed a larger 
part in church affairs and true religion came to be associ- 
ated with good citizenship. It was the new spirit that led 
John Adams to write that " a more equal liberty than has 
prevailed in other parts of the earth must be established 
in America." 

This new Americanism was most completely repre- 
sented in the many-sided Franklin. Shrewd, practical and 
worldly wise, " he was," says a recent writer, " as old as 
the century and touched it at every point. ... He was 
the first American; the very personification of that native 
sense of destiny and high mission in the world, and that 
good-natured tolerance for the half-spent people of 
Europe, which is the American spirit." 1 He was the 
product of a country where " law and custom were most 

1 Becker, "Beginnings of the American People" — the most suggestive 
of all shorter accounts of the Revolution. 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 115 

in accord with the philosopher's ideal society, where the 
world of Rousseau's imagination was most nearly ideal- 
ized." 

That the new spirit of nationalism was not incompatible 
with continued membership in the British Empire has been 
demonstrated by the later history of Canada, Australia, 
and South Africa, which by a process of evolution have 
gained what America had to gain by revolution. Such a 
relationship, however, could only be maintained by tactful, 
just and generous treatment on the part of the mother 
country. But never was England less likely to be true to 
her best traditions. The generous enthusiasms of the 
Renaissance and the moral force of Puritanism had spent 
themselves and had left the England of Magna Charta 
and the Glorious Revolution, cynical, corrupt, materialis- 
tic, and artificial. Almost a hundred years of uninter- 
rupted power had demoralized the Whig party and broken 
it into self-seeking factions. On the throne sat the Ger- 
man, George III, stupid, narrow, and obstinate. Deter- 
mined to rule as well as reign, he played off faction against 
faction and by means of patronage, pensions, and bribery 
came to control the House of Commons. Owing to the 
secrecy of its proceedings that body was completely cut off 
from public opinion, so much so that a reformer of the 
time could write, " This House is not representative of 



n6 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

the people of Great Britain. It is made up of nominal 
boroughs, of ruined and exterminated towns, of noble 
families, of wealthy individuals, of foreign potentates." 
George III greatly influenced events until 1770 and from 
that date until the close of the war was virtually prime 
minister. The English historian, J. R. Green, there- 
fore, exaggerates but little when he declares that " the 
shame of the darkest hour of English history lies wholly 
at his door." 

In the struggle that now arose between authority and 
freedom, George and his ministers based their cause on 
narrowly legalistic grounds, on statutes and precedents. 
To the Americans, on the other hand, the issue was pri- 
marily a moral one. Their point of view was expressed 
by Franklin, who wrote in 1755, " British subjects, by re- 
moving to America, cultivating a wilderness, extending 
the domain, and increasing the wealth, commerce, and 
power of the mother country, at the hazard of their lives 
and their fortunes, ought not, and in fact do not thereby 
lose their native rights." 

The " ought " played a larger and larger part in the 
American case as it developed between the year of 
the Stamp Act (1765) and the Declaration of Independ- 
ence (1776). The issue then cannot be stated merely in 
terms of taxes and duties; of the conflicting interests of 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 117 

American smugglers and British merchants; of the ambi- 
tions of American demagogues or the tactical blunders of 
British statesmen. It was deeper and more fundamental, 
it was a resurgence of the eternal conflict between author- 
ity and freedom, and the same conflict was being waged 
within the mother country and within the colonies them- 
selves. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that this 
was not a struggle between two peoples but rather be- 
tween two principles, each of which was held by a party 
in each country. The reactionary party, the party of 
royal prerogative and vested privilege, was represented in 
Great Britain by George III and the Tories, entrenched 
in the House of Commons. In America it was repre- 
sented by the Loyalists, who constituted perhaps one-third 
of the total population. Twenty-five thousand of these 
were at one time in the British Army, and it is even 
charged that at times there were more Americans under 
the British flag than under the American. The Liberal 
forces, standing for the reform of existing institutions 
and the granting of a larger share in government to the 
people, were led in England by such outstanding figures 
as Pitt, Charles James Fox, and Barre, while in America 
they stood not only for resistance to Parliamentary tax- 
ation but also for the democratization of America itself. 
It is hardly likely that the dispute with Great Britain would 



n8 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

have ended in war had matters been left entirely to the 
commercial and landed aristocracies who had hitherto 
controlled colonial affairs. The issue was pressed with 
constantly growing determination by the radicals of the 
back country and the small farmers and artisans of the 
original settlements. Led by Jefferson and Patrick Henry 
of Virginia and the Adamses of Massachusetts, these ele- 
ments, while pushing the country into war with Great 
Britain on the queston of taxation, were at the same time 
struggling for the overthrow of the old colonial consti- 
tutions and the securing of a larger voice in colonial affairs. 
Then, as now, the West was the home of Radicalism and 
Progressivism. 

The immediate causes of the Revolution grew out of the 
French and Indian Wars, when the eyes of English states- 
men were opened to the inability of the colonies to com- 
bine in their own defense against the Indians, to the illicit 
trade carried on in violation of the Navigation Acts, and 
to the absence of any feeling of Imperial responsibility. 

Trade with the Indian and settlement upon his lands 
had been carried on with the injustice that usually charac- 
terizes the treatment of primitive peoples. Resenting his 
wrongs and spurred on by the French, the Indian had re- 
peatedly resorted to violence with all the horrors of sav- 
age warfare, and all signs seemed to point to an even 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 119 

greater upheaval in the near future. The Colonial legis- 
latures had invariably failed to rise above local prejudices 
and cooperate in an adequate system of defense and they 
now seemed unable to realize the impending danger. 

The Navigation Laws had sought to secure monopoly 
of American trade for the mother country. But all 
through the eighteenth century a highly profitable trade 
had been carried on with the Spanish and French West 
Indies by a system of smuggling which had made many 
a New England merchant enormously rich. In fact, the 
colonies could only hope to balance their heavy indebt- 
edness to England, due to excess of imports over exports, 
by selling to the French and Spanish their lumber, fish, 
and food products. In exchange they received sugar and 
molasses, manufactured the latter into rum, which in turn 
was used in the African slave trade. Even Loyalists like 
Bernard and Hutchinson believed that this trade was 
essential to the prosperity of the colonies and beneficial to 
the mother country as well, while English customs officials 
had winked at the trade to such an extent that the revenue 
service cost more to maintain than it yielded. Unfortu- 
nately the Government saw in the situation only the laxity 
of administration and resolved to put an end to the trade. 

In the course of the seven years' war the public debt of 
England had accumulated to $140,000,000 and the cost of 



120 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

maintaining the army and navy had risen from $70,000 to 
$350,000. As part of these burdens had been incurred 
in the interest of the colonies it was felt to be only just 
that they should share them and contribute to the organ- 
ization and defense of the Empire. That the view of the 
Government was here sound and just no one can now 
deny, but their irritation over other points made it diffi- 
cult to deeply impress the colonists with either the fact 
or the necessity of acting upon it. The assemblies had 
repeatedly failed to overcome their jealousies and agree 
upon a plan for raising such a fund. 

Grenville's (Prime Minister) policy then was to ad- 
vance English commercial interests by enforcing trade 
regulations, to raise revenue in America for the defense 
of America and to protect the Indian and secure his friend- 
ship. To carry out this policy the following measures 
were enacted : ( 1 ) The Sugar Act (1764) to divert the 
trade with the French and Spanish West Indies to the 
British sugar islands; (2) A law forbidding the colonial 
legislatures to issue paper money as legal tender; (3) A 
Proclamation ( 1763) reserving all lands west of the Alle- 
ghenies to the Indians, forbidding governors to make 
grants there and withdrawing those already made; (4) 
The Mutiny Act requiring the colonists to provide utensils 
and provisions for the British garrisons; (5) The Stamp 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 121 

Act requiring revenue stamps on legal documents, licenses, 
etc. 

The legality of only one of these, the Stamp Act, is 
really questionable and much may be said in defense of 
the British view, but the acts were neither wise nor 
expedient and failed to take into account either the preju- 
dices or opinions of the colonists. The most oppressive 
was doubtless the attempt to regulate West Indian trade. 
In doing so, England was but following the custom of all 
colonial powers In regarding colonies as existing for the 
economic welfare of the mother country, but a true grasp 
of economic conditions would have made clear the im- 
mense and essential value of the Spanish and French 
Indian trade both to the mother country and colonies. 
There had doubtless been an excessive use of the privi- 
lege of issuing paper money. Such is always the case 
where there is a large debtor class, and both English and 
American creditors had suffered in consequence thereby. 
But the act was entirely too sweeping and utterly failed 
to distinguish between the uses and abuses of paper money. 
Justice required that the Indian be protected and the Gov- 
ernment even planned to open the western lands for white 
settlement after Indian claims had been justly disposed of, 
but, strange to say, failed to announce the fact and to the 
colonists it looked as if the great prize had been arbi- 



122 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

trarily torn from their grasp. It was only just that the 
colonies should contribute to the defense of the Empire, 
and a statesman like Pitt could have appealed to them as 
Englishmen and made them feel some sense of imperial 
responsibility where a narrow legalist like Grenville only 
aroused irritation. Each of the acts alienated some por- 
tion of the population, and, taken as a whole, they seemed 
to constitute a comprehensive plan for the destruction of 
the material prosperity of the colonies and the overthrow 
of their liberties. 

The Stamp Act was by no means the most injurious 
but, coming last, it became the focus of all the pent-up 
indignation aroused by the preceding legislation. Fur- 
thermore it violated what w r as considered the well-estab- 
lished principle of English liberty that there should be no 
taxation without representation. American leaders were 
prompt to take advantage of this fact and while admit- 
ting the right of Parliament to regulate trade made a 
distinction between external and internal taxation. The 
Massachusetts Assembly declared " Prohibitions of trade 
are neither equitable nor just; but the power of taxation 
is the grand barrier of British liberty. If that is once 
broken down all is lost." This point of view was ac- 
cepted by all the colonies and " no taxation without rep- 
resentation " became the rallying cry of the storm of 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 123 

opposition that now burst forth. Everywhere the law 
was ignored, courts suspended, and mobs prevented the 
sale of the stamps. 

In this opposition the colonists were encouraged by the 
support of the ablest of the English statesmen, who felt 
that English liberties were indirectly threatened. The 
great jurist Lord Camden, the greatest of English politi- 
cal philosophers, Edmund Burke, and the generous, high- 
minded Fox, all espoused the American cause. But most 
gratifying of all was it, that the greatest of English states- 
men, the great Commoner, Pitt, ranged himself on their 
side. He accepted the American distinction between in- 
ternal and external taxation and declared " this kingdom 
has no right to lay a tax on the Colonies. . . . Sir, I 
rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of 
people so dead to all feelings of liberty as voluntarily to 
submit to be slaves would have been fit instruments to 
make slaves of the rest." 

The opposition aroused in England and America, re- 
enforced by the petitions of English merchants whose 
trade had been seriously affected by the American policy 
of non-importation agreements, finally induced Parlia- 
ment to repeal the act March 18, 1766. An accompany- 
ing Declaratory Act, however, asserted the right of Par- 
liament to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever. In 



i2 4 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

America the repeal was received with rejoicing; popular 
discontent subsided, and it is unlikely that further mis- 
understanding would have arisen had it not been for the 
fact that defeat rankled in the mind of George III. The 
opportunity he wanted came when Pitt's clouded mind 
made necessary his withdrawal from public affairs. 
Backed by the King, Charles Townshend (Chancellor of 
the Exchequer) accepted the colonial distinction between 
internal and external taxation and secured the passage of 
the Tea Act which placed a duty on the importation of 
tea, glass, lead, paper, etc. A Restraining Act suspended 
the New York Assembly until it provided for British 
troops according to the Mutiny Act and a Board of Com- 
missioners was established in America for the better en- 
forcement of the Trade Acts. 

The Assembly of Massachusetts was dissolved because 
of a quarrel with its governor and British troops were 
stationed in Boston. These acts intensified old irritation 
and the opposition in America began to pass more and 
more into the hands of the radicals. The old distinction 
between internal and external taxation was abandoned 
and the cry of " no taxation without representation " soon 
gave way to " no legislation without representation." 
Non-importation agreements again seriously impaired 
British Trade and a vigorous educational campaign, car- 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 125 

ried on by pamphleteers, kept alive the public resentment. 
Meanwhile the gulf between radicals and moderates be- 
came wider and wider and many of the latter were re- 
luctantly compelled to become loyalists. 

Though extremely injurious to the colonists them- 
selves the non-importation agreements sufficiently im- 
paired British trade to persuade Lord North in 1770 to 
withdraw all of the duties save that on tea which was 
retained for principle's sake. Again all was quiet for a 
period of years. But in 1773 the Government which 
had just saved the East India Company from bankruptcy, 
granted the Company the right to export all tea stored in 
English warehouses free from all duties save three pence 
in America. The measure seems to have been solely in 
the interest of the Company and its directors were as- 
sured by many American merchants that the move would 
arouse no opposition since the Company could undersell 
tea smuggled from Holland. 

The colonists, however, indignantly rejected the temp- 
tation and everywhere refused to allow the unloading of 
the tea. In Boston Governor Hutchinson refused to 
grant return papers until the cargoes should be discharged 
and the refusal precipitated the famous Boston Tea 
Party. George III was in high glee and wrote his min- 
ister: ''The die is cast; the colonies must either tri^ 



126 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

umph or submit. . . . If we take the resolute part they 
will undoubtedly be very meek." 

His resolution found expression in an act closing the 
Boston port, remodeling the Massachusetts charter by 
giving the nomination of judges and choice of counsel to 
crown and governor, quartering troops on the people, 
and providing for trial in England of those who in sup- 
pression of riot, might commit capital offenses. 

The " meekness " of Massachusetts expressed itself in 
the calling out of the state militia and in general defiance 
of the new laws. The other colonies espoused her cause 
and all sent delegates to a Congress which assembled in 
Philadelphia September 4, 1774. The action of this 
body was extremely moderate and conciliation was still 
possible. Pitt realized the situation and said: "Per- 
haps a fatal desire to take advantage of this guilty tumult 
of the Bostonians, in order to crush the spirit of liberty 
among the Americans in general, has taken possession of 
the heart of the government. If that mad and cruel 
measure should be pushed, one need not be a prophet to 
say, England has seen her best days. America disfran- 
chised, and her charter mutilated, may, I forebode, re- 
sist; and the cause become general on that vast continent." 
After advising with Franklin, he proposed repealing the 
late acts, guaranteeing the security of Colonial Charters, 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 127 

abandoning the right to tax, and recalling the troops, 
while leaving to a colonial assembly the determination of 
America's contribution to the public debt. His pro- 
posals were rejected by Lords and Commons and the 
civil war began which was to result in the Independence 
of America. 

Chatham himself struggled to the last against it. As 
late as 1778, while England was rejoicing over Howe's 
victory, he declared: " You cannot conquer America. 
If I were an American as I am an Englishman, while a 
foreign troop was landed in my country I would never 
lay down my arms — never, never, never." The plan 
he suggested at this time was a kind of federal union of 
Great Britain and the colonies, leaving the colonies the 
management of their internal affairs and simply binding 
them to the Empire by loyalty and affection. This is 
the line along which the Empire has since developed and 
it is a remarkable evidence of Pitt's foresight and states- 
manship that he should have suggested it at this time. 
His wisdom was not shared by the Government and his 
plan was rejected. 

In the matter of the recognition of American Inde- 
pendence, however, the patriot blinded the statesman. 
By April, 1778, Burke, Rockingham, and Fox, the best 
brains of the Whig party, favored such recognition but 



128 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Pitt died protesting against it. In his seventieth year, 
racked with pain, on crutches, and led by his son, he made 
his last visit to the House and spoke these memorable 
words: u I thank God that I have been enabled to come 
here this day to perform my duty. I am old and infirm 
— have one foot, more than one foot, in the grave — I 
have risen from my bed, to stand up in the cause of my 
country — perhaps never again to speak in this House. 
. . . My Lords," he broke forth, " 1 rejoice that the 
grave has not closed upon me ; that I am still alive to lift 
up my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient 
and most noble monarchy! Shall this great kingdom 
now fall prostrate before the House of Bourbon? If 
we must fall, let us fall like men! " 

In America as early as 1774 radicals like Patrick 
Henry and Samuel Adams desired Independence, but the 
feeling was by no means general and it took two years of 
agitation and the hard logic of events to bring the ma- 
jority to it. The non-intercourse policy had injured the 
colonies more than England and there was a desire to 
make good the losses by trade with other nations. " But 
no state will trade or treat with us," said Richard Henry 
Lee, " so long as we consider ourselves subjects of Great 
Britain." On April 6, 1776, American ports were 
opened to the world and on June 7, 1776, Lee, acting on 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 129 

instructions from the Virginia Assembly, moved " that 
these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 
and independent states. . . ." Debated at length, the 
resolution was finally accepted, though reluctantly, by 
many who saw no other course but submission. Many 
others equally conscientious could not go to such lengths 
and definitely passed into the camp of the Loyalists. 

Published to the world July 4, 1776, the Declaration 
of Independence, though perhaps rhetorical, nevertheless 
expresses the basic principles of democracy, principles 
which no one who has faith in humanity can seriously 
question, and principles for which the world is to-day 
(191 8) sacrificing blood and treasure as it has never 
sacrificed them before. 

Between the Declaration of Independence and its real- 
ization seven long years were to elapse, years in which 
there was to emerge much of the sordid and the ignoble 
but more of the noble and the genuine. Many who 
started the struggle grew faint-hearted, faltered and even 
deserted the cause, but all the more honor to the stout- 
hearted and the high-minded who carried it to a success- 
ful issue. America may, on the whole, be justly proud 
of this first chapter of her national history. 

It is not the purpose of this chapter to go into the mil- 
itary events of the struggle but merely to point out a 



i 3 o IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

number of factors that contributed to final victory. First 
among these should be placed the character, fortitude, 
poise and wisdom of Washington. He is indeed the 
" Father of his Country." Never cast down by defeat, 
free from personal ambition, steadfast in his devotion, 
sublime in his patience, his soul was " like a Star, and 
dwelt apart." Short term enlistments, wholesale deser- 
tions, the jealousies of generals, colonial rivalries, the 
bickerings of Congress, continual lack of supplies and 
equipment, and the treason of Arnold are but a few of 
the trials and disappointments that would have crushed 
a less indomitable spirit. 

He never showed to better advantage than in ad- 
versity. After the defeat of Long Island and the retreat 
through New Jersey, when his army was reduced to a 
mere remnant and the cause seemed utterly lost, he un- 
expectedly turned, recrossed the Delaware amidst the 
snow and ice of a winter night, surprised the enemy at 
Trenton on Christmas morning and captured a thousand 
prisoners. This brilliant and masterly stroke was prob- 
ably the most important single event of the war as it 
put new heart into the American army and made possible 
the continuation of the war. Again in the grim, dark 
days at Valley Forge in the winter of 1778, when hunger, 
cold and neglect brought despair to the stoutest hearts 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 131 

it was the spirit and example of Washington that pre- 
vented the total collapse of the cause. He served his 
country well in war and in peace, and like Alfred the 
Great, his moral grandeur in both has been a priceless 
heritage to his people. 

If the leadership of Washington was the biggest factor 
in America's final success, the incapacity of the British 
generals contributed almost as much. The immense dis- 
tance and the consequent difficulties of transportation, 
the vast extent and character of the country to be con- 
quered, the opposition of her own best minds, and the 
country's lack of heart in the struggle, making necessary 
the use of hired German troops, all made the task of 
England difficult at best. The incompetency of her gen- 
erals made it impossible. 

It is difficult to see, too, how success could have been 
attained without the aid of France. Through the efforts 
of Franklin, whose personality and fame as a scientist 
and philosopher made him a great favorite at the French 
court, the French Government had given America sub- 
stantial aid in money and supplies even before the battle of 
Saratoga. After this event, French agents in London in- 
formed their Government that the colonies were about 
to combine with England in an attack on the French 
West Indies as the price of their own independence. It 



132 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

was probably to frustrate such a move that the French 
Government agreed on February 6, 1778, to a defensive- 
offensive alliance. 1 Whatever may have been the mo- 
tives of the Government, it must be said, however, that 
the French nation as a whole was moved by a generous 
enthusiasm for a people struggling for liberty. 

French troops and the French navy were of but little 
immediate value, but French money financed the war until 
178 1 when the French army and the French fleet made 
possible Washington's final victory at Yorktown. 

One other military event must not be overlooked on 
account of its bearing on the final peace negotiations. 
All through the struggle backwoods settlements had been 
among the stoutest supporters of the war. Their com- 
panies of sharpshooters, made up of trappers and hunters 
of the type of Daniel Boone, had rendered invaluable 
service to Gates, Washington, and Greene and no com- 
mand in the American army was more feared than were 
Morgan's daring riflemen. Their own homes, however, 
were constantly subject to Indian attack and this seemed 
likely to continue so long as the British held Vincennes 
and Detroit. Moreover English possession of these 
points made it unlikely that, even if Independence were 

1 Prof. Van Tyne of Michigan University bases this on new material 
discovered in the Paris Archives. 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 133 

acknowledged, the boundaries of the new nation would ex- 
tend beyond the Alleghenies. Moved by these facts, 
George Rogers Clark, famous as trapper, hunter, and In- 
dian fighter, secured the secret approval of Patrick Henry, 
Governor of Virginia, for an attempt to destroy British 
power in the Northwest. 

In the spring of 1778, with a force of only 150 men 
Clark floated down the Ohio, built a fort at Louisville, 
surprised and captured several minor points in Illinois 
and in the winter of 1779 began a perilous march against 
Vincennes, where the British Commander, General Ham- 
ilton, the " Hair Buyer," had recently arrived. The 
little band pushed its way 170 miles through bogs and 
flooded lowlands, suffering untold hardships for lack of 
fire and tents. At one time the food gave out, but for- 
tune sent them a deer and a few days later an Indian 
canoe filled with food. To reach Vincennes it was nec- 
essary to wade up to their necks in water but, nothing 
daunted, they pushed on and surprised and captured the 
fort. Clark wished also to attack Detroit but was never 
given the necessary support. Nevertheless the expedi- 
tion had momentous results for it not only relieved the 
western settlements from further attack, but influenced 
England to cede the western country at the close of the 



134 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

war, and thus made possible further expansion into the 
Mississippi valley. 

" It's all over," cried Lord North, when he heard the 
news of Yorktown. George III would have continued 
the conflict, but England was now at war with France, 
Spain, and Holland, and threatened by the powers of the 
north. The nation itself had been alienated by the 
attempt to establish the personal rule of the monarch 
and now put the Whig party into power against his will. 
The new Government immediately entered into negotia- 
tions with the colonies. The eagerness of the English 
ambassadors for an immediate peace, the skill of Frank- 
lin and the sturdy determination of Adams and Jay, made 
it possible for America to secure far better terms than 
could have been expected. During the negotiations it 
unfortunately seemed, though without justification, that 
France did not intend the United States to have the West- 
ern Country. Having secured the consent of England on 
this point, Adams and Jay, much against Franklin's will, 
insisted on violating instructions, and made peace without 
the knowledge and consent of their ally. Regrettable as 
are the circumstances, the result made possible the future 
greatness of the nation, giving it a strong motive for 
closer union and room for a normal and healthy expan- 
sion. 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 135 

England made a determined effort to secure restora- 
tion of property and rights of citizenship to the Loyalists 
who had so faithfully served her cause but it was all in 
vain. Regarded by the colonists as traitors to their 
country, they have since come to be recognized as men 
who sacrified all for principle's sake. Many of them, 
perhaps a majority, were men of character, culture, and 
ability and America suffered a distinct loss when they left 
the country. It is estimated that about 100,000 of them 
settled in various parts of Canada and the West Indies, 
and became known as United Empire Loyalists. It is to 
the credit of England that she sought to alleviate their 
hard lot by distributing among them and their heirs be- 
tween three and four million pounds. 

Thus the British Empire through the folly of its rulers 
and the devotion of the colonists to the principles of 
British freedom, was rent in twain. The old colonial 
policy of exploitation, the policy not only of England 
but of France, Spain, and Holland, had failed. The 
majority of Englishmen, disappointed and disillusioned, 
came to believe that retention of colonies could not be 
permanent and that the break-up of empires was inevi- 
table. The devotion of thousands of Loyalists, in spite 
of mistreatment, failed to teach them the power of senti- 
ment in the formation of empire. They failed to draw 



136 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

the logical conclusion that generous and just treatment 
would have made such sentiment so powerful as to be in- 
dissoluble. For generations it was held that as ripe fruit 
falls from the tree so colonies would in course of time 
fall away from the mother country. The fallacy of this 
conclusion, time and experience were to demonstrate, for 
liberalism was yet to come into its own and Britain was 
yet to be the founder of a mighty empire. 

Moreover, in spite of separation, Britain still speaks 
through America. As Sir Charles Dilke has said, " In 
America the peoples of the world are being fused to- 
gether, but they are run into an English mold. Alfred's 
laws and Chaucer's tongue are theirs whether they would 
or no. There are men who say that Britain in her age 
will claim the glory of having planted greater Englands 
across the seas. They fail to perceive that she has done 
more than found plantations of her own — that she has 
imposed her institutions upon the offshoots of Germany, 
of Ireland, of Scandinavia, and of Spain. Through 
America, England is speaking to the world." 



VII 

THE BEGINNINGS OF AUSTRALIA 

From the triumphs of Wolfe, of Clive and of Wash- 
ington, from the achievements of statesmen on whom 
rested the destinies of great nations, from the din of 
battle and the heat of passion, we turn to a page of his- 
tory that is strangely free from the dramatic crises of 
war and politics. In the. story of Australia the intrigues 
of diplomats and the roar of guns have no place. For 
here is a wealthy and powerful self-governing com- 
munity that has never once had to defend its existence 
against invader or rival. The great island continent of 
of the South Seas is the one part of the world in which 
Britain's claim was the first one entered and in which 
that claim was never disputed. 

By the middle of the eighteenth century England's rule 
extended in Asia over only the cities of Madras, Bombay, 
and Calcutta; in America over the Atlantic states, Acadia, 
and the Hudson's Bay Territory; and in Africa over an 
ill-defined strip on the Gold Coast. That is to say, there 

137 



138 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

was practically no empire except in America, and the 
British provinces there were divided, quarrelsome, and 
barely able to hold their own against a watchful and for- 
midable foe. Thirteen years later Canada had changed 
hands, and Clive had laid the basis of the British Empire 
in India. Twenty years after the Peace of Paris the 
Atlantic states were independent. But before England 
had forgotten the triumphs of Wolfe and Clive, and 
before she had realized that her first and most prosper- 
ous colonies were irretrievably severed from her rule, a 
second new world was being found, a new field on which 
to atone for her failure. For between the critical years 
of the Stamp Act and the surrender of Yorktown James 
Cook had done his work and had fallen in the far-off 
Pacific. 

In the spring of 1768, the year in which the British 
House of Commons entered the second stage of its hu- 
miliating struggle with Wilkes, the year after Town- 
shend's Revenue Act, the year before the appearance of 
the Letters of Junius, — in this year of the brewing of 
great things, the Royal Society represented to George III 
the desirability of watching from the South Seas the 
transit of Venus across the sun's surface. Happy it is 
for human nature that at such a time some men could 
be found to think of such a thing, and ■ — still more 



THE BEGINNING OF AUSTRALIA 139 

strange — that the king could attend to the society's 
prayer and see that an expedition was equipped. The 
little ship Endeavour was fitted out, trained scientists 
were commissioned to accompany her, and James Cook, 
a lieutenant of the navy, was placed in command. James 
Cook was one of the last men in the world to be thought 
of as the conscious, fire-eating imperialist of the editorial 
or the political speech. He had risen from modest sta- 
tion by pure force of merit, until his reputation was as- 
sured as the best navigator in His Majesty's navy, and 
one of the wisest and clearest-headed men in the service. 
He had been with Wolfe at Quebec and had sailed in 
many seas, but he was not yet the Captain Cook whose 
name has been familiar to six generations of English- 
men as the pioneer of Britain in the South Pacific. Mod- 
est, practical, keen-eyed, a born sailor, and gifted with 
the imagination and the temperament of a scientist, he 
was to be one of the little band of famous men whose 
names are made immortal in the last ten years of life. 
When he sailed from Plymouth on a bright August day 
in 1768 he was entering all unknowing on the voyage 
that was to place his name with those of Drake and An- 
son, or even with the perhaps greater one of Vasco da 

Gama. 

On the third of June, 1769, the astronomical observa- 



i 4 o IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

tions that were the prime object of the expedition were 
satisfactorily accomplished at the island of Tahiti. 
These watchings of the heavens need no comment, and 
we may assume without investigation that they answered 
their purpose. So friendly were the relations of the 
islanders and the Europeans that the descriptions of the 
place handed down read like extracts from Sydney's 
" Arcadia." To Cook and his companions as to many 
others after them it became the spot in the Pacific to be 
welcomed above all others, though it was not destined 
to become part of the Empire. But another task awaited 
the voyagers which suited the daring spirit of Cook better 
than the observation of planets or the lazy pleasures of 
Tahiti. Not for long could he endure the dreamy life, 
the enervating ease of this lotus island, and as the sum- 
mer neared its height sailors and scientists were awakened 
to action by their commander. The ship was soon in 
trim for a new voyage. She was headed south and west; 
Venus and Tahiti were forgotten; and all eyes were 
turned to the far horizon beyond which lay the mysterious 
Terra Australis. Away to the south and stretching to 
the Pole, men believed, lay this southern continent. Sail- 
ors had sighted capes or mountains or stretches of coast, 
and from their scattered observations the puzzled geog- 
raphers at home made on their maps a vague stretch of 




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THE BEGINNING OF AUSTRALIA 141 

land reaching down from the frozen circle up to an uncer- 
tain distance into the Pacific. Here and there a name was 
assigned on the vague authority of some Dutch voyager 
exploring eastward from the Spice Islands. But little or 
nothing was positively known, and it was to clear away 
this cloud of ignorance that Cook headed the Endeavour 
for the far south in the midsummer of 1769. 

Week after week the little ship sailed on with a fair 
wind, a dot on the vast expanse of the South Pacific. 
Now and then they sighted and passed some green Para- 
dise of waving palm, fringed with its surf-beaten reef 
of coral. But there was no sign of any continent until 
at last late in August the explorers saw on the horizon 
rugged mountain peaks. Rapidly there came into clearer 
view the beautiful shores of New Zealand, and anchor 
was cast in the harbor of Tauranga. A landing was 
attempted in vain. The natives were hostile and formid- 
able, and it was not worth while to risk the loss of life 
that would have accompanied a conflict. So the eager 
and sea-weary Englishmen moved northward, following 
the coast until they reached another bay where no suspi- 
cious savages forbade their landing. It was named Mer- 
cury Bay from the fact that the astronomers of the expe- 
dition here watched the transit of Mercury across the 
sun's surface, and here with due formalities Cook hoisted 



142 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

the English flag, taking possession of the country in the 
name of King George. But he soon assured himself 
that he had not found the continent of which he was in 
search. For he sailed completely around the two noble 
islands, and then without attempting to penetrate beyond 
the coast, he left behind him the strait that still bears his 
name, took leave of New Zealand at Cape Farewell, and 
headed west. 

It was now the spring of 1770, or rather the autumn, 
for Christmas is midsummer in Australia, and the month 
of March is the time when relief begins to come after the 
long period of heat. So it was early in the rainy season 
when Cook sighted the coast to which he gave the name 
of New South Wales. No one knew as yet what this 
land might be, whether part of the Southern Continent 
or a great outlying island. But when anchor was cast 
the scientists of the ship eagerly landed to see what man- 
ner of vegetation and soil they might find, and from the 
wealth of spoil which they gathered they gave the place 
the name of Botany Bay. Notwithstanding his suspicion 
that his find might be the land discovered long before by 
Dutch sailors and named New Holland, Cook proclaimed 
here as in New Zealand the sovereignty of King George. 
Technically, perhaps, Flolland might have asserted a 
prior claim. But it might be argued, on the other hand, 



THE BEGINNING OF AUSTRALIA 143 

that an ownership of over a century unsupported by any 
assertion of power or any attempt at either settlement 
or trade might well be considered void, and possibly Cap- 
tain Cook so reasoned. In any case the decline of Hol- 
land as a world power made her control of the South 
Pacific in the eighteenth century an impossibility, and the 
countrymen of Dirk Hartog and Abel Tasman made no 
effort to dispute the claim of their old commercial rivals 
to this vast prize which they had allowed to slip from 
their grasp. So the flag of England was hoisted at Bot- 
any Bay as at Mercury, and Cook began to coast cau- 
tiously on to the north, observing and making notes as 
he sailed. The reefs made the voyage a somewhat dan- 
gerous one, and at Cape Tribulation a spike of coral 
pierced the side of the vessel. But by some miracle it 
broke there and remained in the puncture it had made, 
so the crew were able to keep the ship afloat until she 
reached shore close by the mouth of a little river which 
Cook named after his rescued vessel. For two thousand 
miles the explorer sailed north, following the coast, until 
at last he came to Cape York, where a sharp turn to the 
west led him into the strait navigated by the Spaniard 
Torres one hundred and sixty years before. He fol- 
lowed it just far enough to make sure of the separation 
between New Holland, or Australia, and New Guinea, 



i 4 4 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

and then sailed for home. In his own mind he was not 
satisfied that he had found the continent that he sought. 
To us his success seems complete, and we have given to 
the great land that he found for England the name that 
two hundred years ago was half mythical — Terra Aus~ 
trails, Australia. 

Of Cook's next two voyages we must be satisfied with 
a mere notice. In July, 1772, he sailed once more from 
Plymouth to seek for a great Southern Continent other 
than New Holland. But the only one that could be found 
was one of ice. On the 30th of June, 1774, in Cook's 
own words, " we perceived the clouds over the horizon 
to be of an unusual snow-white brightness, which we knew 
announced our approach to field ice. Soon after it was 
seen from the topmast head, and at 8 o'clock we were 
close to its edge. It extended east and west far beyond 
the reach of our sight. . . . Ninety-seven ice hills were 
distinctly seen within the field, besides those on the out- 
side, many of them very large, and looking like a ridge 
of mountains rising one above the other until they were 
lost in the clouds." So the explorer had to turn back 
and content himself with a careful investigation of the 
sea and islands farther north. He returned home finally 
with the conviction that with the exception of the land 
which he had found on his first voyage there was no 



THE BEGINNING OF AUSTRALIA 145 

southern continent to be found. His last voyage was 
undertaken for the purpose of finding the long sought 
Northwest passage by way of the Pacific, but it ended 
sadly enough. On the 14th of February, 1779, the 
great sailor met his death at the hands of savages on the 
island of Oahu in the Sandwich group. 

There is something peculiarly dramatic in the time of 
Cook's life and voyages. The year of the discovery of 
New South Wales saw the beginning of the fatal admin- 
istration of Lord North. The year in which he set sail 
on this third Pacific voyage was the year of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, and before his work on earth was 
ended Burgoyne had surrendered his army at Saratoga. 
As the oldest and greatest of the colonies were turning 
in fierce revolt to cut asunder the ties that bound them to 
the home island, this single gallant English sailor, sur- 
rounded not by men of war but by men of science, was 
pointing his country to a new empire that might take the 
place of the one which was falling away. Far from the 
passions and prejudices of Westminster or Philadelphia 
the foundations were being marked out of a common- 
wealth that was to be as free as Massachusetts and as 
loyal as Yorkshire. Gloomy days were those for Eng- 
land, but the blunders of a foolish king and his worse 
than foolish abettors could not wholly thwart the destiny 



146 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

of the race that they disgraced. From the intrigues of 
the court, from the quibbles of debate, from the pettiness, 
the blunders, the ceaseless tragedy of civil war that fill 
the pages of history between 1770 and 1780, we may turn 
surely with a glad relief to those distant seas where 
James Cook sailed and thought and died. 

Four years after the great navigator's death the Amer- 
ican colonies had won the acknowledgment of their inde- 
pendence. Turgot's gloomy dictum that colonies, like 
fruit, would drop from the parent stem as they matured 
seemed to be justified by the facts. The theory that 
colonies were only to be encouraged in so far as they 
were of service to the mother country had received its 
death blow at Bunker Hill and Yorktown, and no notion 
of a large imperial patriotism had arisen to take its place. 
It was not a time, therefore, when generous idealism in 
colonial affairs was to be expected. The collapse of the 
old policy had left in most minds a more or less well de- 
fined conviction that colonies were a dangerous and un- 
profitable investment. The new economic teaching of 
the Physiocrats in France, and of Adam Smith in Eng- 
land, the theory of laissez faire, absolute freedom in in- 
dustry and trade, led inevitably to the colonial theory 
implied in the saying of Turgot just quoted. One might 



THE BEGINNING OF AUSTRALIA 147 

indeed hope for courtesy, generosity even, rather than 
coercion in the future relations between England and the 
colonies which were left to her, but enthusiasm or such 
hopeful and patriotic launching of colonial enterprises 
as we might find in the days of Raleigh and Gilbert were 
assuredly not to be looked for. England had blundered, 
had been humiliated, had been puzzled, bewildered, and 
— disillusioned. 

Under such unpromising conditions, then, were taken 
the first steps toward the settlement of the vast island 
found for England by Captain Cook. No halo of ro- 
mance, no chivalrous dreams of winning a new world to 
Christianity and civilization, no adventurous yearning for 
new things or even the thirst for gold, threw a glittering 
veil over the beginnings of Australia. The suffering, the 
ferocity, the crimes, the weary struggles that might fill the 
annals of Quebec, of Mexico, of Virginia, or of Massa- 
chusetts are redeemed and half obscured for us by an ill- 
defined but very real something that idealizes and bright- 
ens the story for all time. But the foundations of Aus- 
tralia were laid not by men of the stamp of Champlain, 
of Cortez, of Walter Raleigh or of John Winthrop, but 
by a weary, travel-worn, crime-stained band of convicts 
sent thousands of miles over seas by the stern laws of 



148 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

their country to labor or starve. From so unpromising 
a seed has grown the great commonwealth of the South 
Seas. 

In August, 1786, Lord Sydney, at that time Home 
Secretary in the government of William Pitt, proposed 
to his colleagues the formation of a convict settlement in 
New South Wales. Until a short time before, the crim- 
inal population of Britain had been very conveniently 
shipped off to the Plantations in America. They had 
been little or no expense to the government, for contrac- 
tors had been ready and eager to pay five to twenty pounds 
a head for what was to them a cheap lot of valuable slave 
labor. But all this had been ended by the American 
Revolution, and it was no easy matter after 1783 to de- 
vise a new criminal policy that would be satisfactory. A 
penal settlement had been tried on the coast of Africa, 
but with disastrous results, and under the harsh laws of 
the time the jails of Britain were becoming alarmingly 
crowded. But now Lord Sydney believed that he had 
in New South Wales " a remedy for the evils likely to 
result from the late alarming and numerous increase of 
felons in this country, and more particularly in the me- 
tropolis." He drew up an elaborate report, recommend- 
ing a penal colony and basing his facts on the observations 
of Captain Cook and the most eminent of Cook's scientific 



THE BEGINNING OF AUSTRALIA 149 

associates, Sir Joseph Banks. Arrangements were made 
as to provisions, guards for the convict ships, surgeons 
and medical supplies, and the method by which in time, 
it was hoped, the colony might be made self-supporting. 
Even the reformatory side of the problem was thought 
of, and it was suggested that a new continent so far from 
the scenes and companions of their evil life would give 
the convicts a far better chance of reformation than either 
the old plantation system or confinement at home. 

The report was acted upon. Captain Arthur Phillip, 
a naval officer of experience and ability, was chosen as 
governor and commander-in-chief over the territory of 
New South Wales, and with shrewdness and energy he 
bent himself to the task of correcting and supplementing 
the arrangement of the Government. His point of view 
may be best indicated by one or two of his suggestions. 
He desired that a supply ship suitably provided with car- 
penters and other skilled laborers should go ahead of the 
fleet in order that huts and general accommodation might 
be ready for the troops and convicts on their arrival. 
" During the passage," he wrote, " when light airs or 
calms permit, I shall visit the transports to see that they 
are kept clean and receive the allowance ordered by 
Government, and at these times shall endeavor to make 
them sensible of their situation, and that their happiness 



150 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

or misery is in their own hands." And again in a letter 
he spoke with sufficient positiveness on a point less obvious 
then than it would be now. " The laws of this country 
will, of course, be introduced into New South Wales, and 
there is one which I would wish to take place from the 
moment His Majesty's forces take possession of the 
country — that there can be no slavery in a free land, 
and, consequently, no slaves." Finally, in urging encour- 
agement on the part of the Government to free emigration 
he expressed a conviction which was natural enough, and 
which is worth quoting in order that we may see the 
problem, but which was inevitably annulled later on by 
the progress of events. " As I would not wish convicts 
to lay the foundations of an empire, I think they should 
ever remain separate from the garrison and other settlers 
that may come from Europe, and not be allowed to mix 
with them even after the seven or fourteen years for 
which they are transported may be expired." But the 
years to come were kinder to the outcasts than Governor 
Phillip. Many of the noblest gentlemen of England bear 
names inherited from brutal lords of the age of force. 
And many of the worthiest names in Australia were once 
borne by men sent out as convicts to Botany Bay. 

In May, 1787, the fleet of eleven ships left Spithead, 
and in January of the following year they sailed into the 



THE BEGINNING OF AUSTRALIA 151 

harbor entered and named by the companions of Cook 
eighteen years before. There seemed, however, to be 
no suitable position for the settlement there, and the 
anchorage was bad, so while preparations were made at 
once for disembarkation Captain Phillip and several of 
his officers went off in three boats to coast along to the 
north in search of a better site. This they found at 
Port Jackson. " We got into Port Jackson early in the 
afternoon," wrote the leader himself, " and had the satis- 
faction of finding the finest harbor in the world, in which 
a thousand sail of the line may ride in perfect security." 
So Port Jackson was at once substituted for Botany Bay. 
Just before the transfer was arranged the two ships of 
the famous and ill-fated French explorer, La Perouse, 
came to anchor at the side of the English fleet, and the 
officers had friendly conference. Perhaps the few days' 
difference in the time of arrival of the English and French 
ships determined the political future of Australia. But 
be that as it may, when La Perouse sighted the coast of 
New South Wales he sighted English ground, and by the 
waters of Port Jackson was rapidly built the cluster of 
huts and barracks to which Phillip gave the name of 
Sydney. In the pompous, artificial verse of the eight- 
eenth century one of the colonists three years later ex- 
pressed the hope of the little settlement. Through the 



i 5 2 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

stiff, mechanical lines beats a largeness of aspiration that 
shadowed forth quite unmistakably the greatness of the 
structure whose foundations were being thus humbly laid 
by convicts and their guards : 

Where Sydney Cove her lucid bosom swells, 

Courts her young navies, and the storm repels; 

High on a rock, amid the troubled air, 

Hope stood sublime, and waved her golden hair. 

" Hear me! " she cried, " ye rising realms record 

Time's opening scenes and Truth's unerring word; 

There shall broad streets their stately walls extend, 

The circus widen and the crescent bend ; 

There ray'd from cities o'er the cultured land, 

Shall bright canals and solid roads expand. 

Embellish'd villas crown the landscape scene, 

Farms wave with gold, and orchards blush between, 

While with each breeze approaching vessels glide, 

And northern treasures dance on every tide ! " 

Then ceased the nymph ; tumultuous echoes roar, 

And Joy's loud voice was heard from shore to shore; 

Her graceful steps descending press'd the plain, 

And Peace, and Arts, and Labor joined the train, l^ 

The prophecy was abundantly fulfilled. But a convict 
settlement does not become a great Commonwealth with- 
out friction and manifold troubles, and the records of the 
first half-century of the new colony leave one marveling 
that so noble a fruit could issue from such unpromising 
beginnings and such blind guidance. The men sent out 



THE BEGINNING OF AUSTRALIA 153 

by the home government to fill important administra- 
tive posts in New South Wales would seem to have been 
selected for the most part with utter disregard to fitness. 
Moreover the situation was difficult at its best. Re- 
sponsibility to a government on the other side of the 
world before the days of the steamship and the telegraph 
meant something very like despotism, a method of gov- 
ernment for which Englishmen are ill adapted in the ca- 
pacity of either rulers or ruled. Few of the governors 
as a matter of fact had any capacity for their task, and 
good and bad alike found themselves members of a jeal- 
ous and quarrelsome official body. Undignified bicker- 
ings and arrogant use of power on the part of the gov- 
ernors and their colleagues alternate on the pages of 
history with bitter quarrels between the free settlers and 
the discharged convicts. 

Yet faction and blunderings were alike unable to check 
the steady development of the colony. An able and 
clear-sighted officer of the military force, John Macar- 
thur, saw the possibilities of the country for sheep-raising. 
From a soldier he became a breeder and a stockman, and 
his success resulted in the gradual establishment of a 
great industry. Immigrants came, attained an independ- 
ence and wealth that they could never have achieved in 
Europe, and in spite of all handicaps built up a flourish- 



154 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

ing and growing community. Under the severe criminal 
laws that prevailed in England down to Peel's reforms 
of the twenties it by no means followed that because men 
and women were convicts they must needs be depraved, 
and under the comparatively favorable conditions of their 
new country they frequently proved themselves worthy 
citizens. The real criminals and degenerates were soon 
vastly outnumbered, and transportation ceased after 1840. 
A compulsory school system was established on a scale 
far surpassing that of the mother country, and the Uni- 
versity of Sydney received its charter in 1848. Respon- 
sible government came slowly, only after long agitation, 
for the lesson of Canada had not been quite digested and 
it was difficult for many in England to believe that the 
convict settlement of " Botany Bay " was a thing of the 
past. But in 1850 an Act was passed by the British Par- 
liament giving the Australian colonies the right to choose 
their own form of government, and in 1856 th$ first Aus- 
tralian Parliament with a ministry responsible not to the 
Crown but to the people met in Sydney. New South 
Wales thus became a free state, a member of the Em- 
pire on the same terms as had been already recognized 
in Canada. 

At the same time self-government was given to the 



THE BEGINNING OF AUSTRALIA i 55 

more recent settlements in Van Diemen's Land and on 
the south coast. The former, a convict colony from New 
South Wales, had had the same troubled childhood as its 
youthful parent, but in 1855 representative government 
came, following the abolition of transportation the year 
before, and the beautiful island entered upon a more 
peaceful and prosperous era under its present name of 
Tasmania — both its old and its new name being de- 
rived from seventeenth century Dutch discoverers. From 
Van Diemen's Land adventurous settlers in the thirties 
crossed the straits to found a community on the shores of 
Port Phillip. In 1837, the year of Queen Victoria's ac- 
cession to the throne, the pioneer village of some seventy 
families received the recognition of the government of 
New South Wales and was named Melbourne. In 1850 
the Port Phillip settlement was separated from New 
South Wales under the name of Victoria, and five years 
later the colony was given responsible government in 
accordance with what was now a recognized policy. 

But while politicians at Melbourne and Sydney were 
debating over charters and Acts of Parliament and while 
friendly messages were passing to and fro between the 
colony and the mother land, the long era of slow growth 
was suddenly ended. Up to 1851 Australia was a land 



1 5 6 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

of thriving towns and of vast ranges. In lonely stations 
scattered over the rolling uplands of Victoria, New South 
Wales and Queensland the sheep herders watched the 
flocks whose wool provided the one article of export 
that could be profitably shipped to Europe and America. 
Those who craved excitement had to find it in the wordy 
conflicts of Parliament, in the exploration of the interior, 
or in " bushranging." But then there came the discovery 
of gold, and the quiet isolation of the southern continent 
was broken by the rush of an invading army. 

Three years before, just nine days after the treaty had 
been signed that made California United States territory, 
gold had been discovered in the race of a saw-mill in the 
Sierras. Across prairie and desert and from far over- 
seas men had flocked, summoned by the potent enchant- 
ment of the yellow wizard, and the tale of it had reached 
Australia. Of those who left the uneventful monotony 
of the sheep station to try their luck in California one 
was destined to bring back something worth much more 
than the sack of gold of which he had dreamed. For 
as he worked on his claim in California he realized that 
the gold-bearing sand of the Sacramento was reminding 
him constantly of the home he had left overseas. Full 
of a new idea, he hastened back to New South Wales. 
His first search verified his suspicion, and the announce- 



THE BEGINNING OF AUSTRALIA 157 

ment of the discovery of gold at the junction of the Sum- 
merhill Creek with the Macquarie, a few miles west of 
Bathurst, turned the eyes of the world's gold-seekers to 
Australia. 1 

The stampede to New South Wales was both a blow 
and a stimulus to Victoria. A reward was offered by 
the government at Melbourne for the first discovery of 
gold in the younger colony, but even before a bounty was 
promised swarms of prospectors were scattered through 
the hills in eager search. Gold was soon struck, and 
then were found the immensely rich veins of the Ballarat 
fields. New South Wales was eclipsed; Melbourne be- 
came almost over night the largest city in the British col- 
onies, full of a seething, enthusiastic horde of miners, 
would-be miners, and adventurers of all descriptions. 
Not easily or peacefully did the province assimilate its 
new population or reduce it to order. The wild lawless- 
ness of the California gold-camps was repeated in Vic- 
toria. But gradually order was created and maintained, 
and the mining and export of gold became only an im- 
portant industry, rivaling but not surpassing the old staple 
of wool. 

1 In 1846 Sir Roderick Murchison, an eminent English geologist, had 
noted the similarity of the quartz rock in the great north and south chain 
which ranges along the eastern shores of Australia to the auriferous 
sections of the Ural Mountains, and on this basis had prophesied the 
discovery of gold in Australia. 



158 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Such in brief is the story of the beginnings of Australia. 
As Canada and South Africa had had their handicap in a 
severe problem of dual nationality, so Australia had had 
hers in her distance from Europe and in the convict set- 
tlements. The fact that New South Wales was for years 
regarded by the home government as a species of over- 
seas penitentiary meant a long period of friction, of bit- 
ter class feeling and of injustice. It meant, moreover, 
an element of lawlessness that was not only a terrible 
internal problem but a stain on Australia's reputation. 
For generations the name of the colony that was fighting 
its way to free state-hood in the South Pacific brought 
to the minds of the rest of the English-speaking world 
two unsavory terms: Botany Bay, as the convict settle- 
ment of New South Wales was universally called, and the 
word " bushranger," for in no other part of the newer 
countries has the fringe of civilization been so scourged 
by outlaws of all degrees of ferocity as in Australia. But 
Canada still has the problem of Quebec, while Australia 
can now regard her Botany Bay and bushranger days as 
ancient history. Virile, free, masters of an island almost 
equal in area to the United States, with no frontier but 
the sea-shore, the Australians of the fifties could face the 
problems of democracy less trammeled by internal disun- 
ion, by conflicting ideals or by foreign rivalries than any 



THE BEGINNING OF AUSTRALIA 159 

people in the world, present or past. And their war- 
cry, the motto of the present Commonwealth, was an apt 
one — Advance, Australia! 



VIII 

THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 

The southern point of Africa was not made the seat 
of a European settlement because it looked inviting. 
There are few more forbidding coasts. Harbors are 
rare and the gigantic terrace formation of the country 
topped by the great plateaus — often fiercely hot deserts 
— known as the Karroos, seemed to be a discouragement 
to exploration and settlement that scarcely needed the 
additional terror of wild beasts and wild men. But it 
had one advantage, and it was that one point that brought 
about the Dutch settlement in the middle of the seven- 
teenth century, — its position on the route to the Indies. 
It will be remembered that it was by Portuguese navi- 
gators that the Cape route was opened, and that the East 
Indies trade was consequently in the hands of the Portu- 
guese during the sixteenth century. But we have seen 
how towards the end of that century there came two 
revolutions in Europe which directly affected the East: 
the temporary absorption of Portugal by Spain in 1580 
and the revolt of the Netherlands. Holland shot up into 

160 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 161 

a great maritime and commercial power with entire con- 
tempt for the Spanish and Portuguese monopoly of the 
Indies, and during the seventeenth century much of the 
eastern trade passed into the hands of the Dutch. Just 
as Sofala and St. Paul de Loanda, therefore, had been 
used as a refreshment station by the Portuguese, Cape 
Town was founded for the same purpose by the Dutch 
in 1652. But under the rules of the Dutch East India 
Company the colony remained little more than a stopping 
place. The people at home, as a matter of fact, never 
looked upon the Cape as a real colony, and never seriously 
thought of there being anything to be gained by going 
there. Farms and little settlements did spread inland 
a short distance in spite of the frequent attacks of Bush- 
men and Kaffirs and the constant trouble from wild beasts. 
But there was no prospect of its ever becoming a really 
important settlement, and the decay of the trading com- 
pany during the eighteenth century brought further trou- 
ble in the way of misgovernment and hard times. 

In 1793 England and Holland joined the other na- 
tions of Europe in war against the new French Republic. 
Like all others who measured strength on land with the 
youthful giant, Holland, divided sorely within herself, 
found that she was no match for her opponent. In 1795 
she yielded to fate, submitted to French arms, expelled 



1 62 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

the Prince of Orange, and became the Batavian Republic 
under French supervision. England's ally thus became 
an enemy, and the island kingdom prepared to widen her 
circle of attack and strike at the trade and sea-power of 
her adversaries. Since the days of Dupleix and Clive 
she too had become a power in the East. As the Portu- 
guese and Dutch had needed a half-way station so now 
did the English. The most obvious blow therefore would 
be one that would not only cripple Holland but result in 
a valuable acquisition. Accordingly, in June, 1795, an 
English fleet and army appeared in Simon's Bay on the 
south of the little peninsula that terminates in the Cape 
of Good Hope. The colonists, in doubt whether their 
loyalty to Holland and the exiled Stadtholder should ex- 
tend to the new Batavian Repub}ic, abandoned Simons- 
town, and after several half-hearted attempts at resist- 
ance, Cape Town Castle was surrendered on the 16th of 
September. In 18 14 this was made final by treaty and 
purchase, and the Cape Colony became the nucleus for 
British expansion in South Africa. 

At this time the European population numbered about 
30,000, practically all Dutch, with another 30,000 slaves 
and about 20,000 native servants. But an inflow of Eng- 
lish settlers began at once. There were hard times in 
England after the war, and many a hard-pressed mechanic 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 163 

and farmer was glad to turn to the new lands overseas. 
A very natural racial grouping caused the English immi- 
grants to draw together to the east of the old Dutch 
settlement, centering about Algoa' Bay, and Port Eliza- 
beth became their seaport. But there was a good deal of 
inevitable mingling, and on the whole, relations were rea- 
sonably friendly. The friction which appeared in later 
years began, not in disagreement between English and 
Dutch settlers, but between the Dutch settlers and the 
home authorities, and the crucial point of the differences 
was the " black " question. 

In order to clear the way to an understanding of Brit- 
ish expansion in South Africa we ought to follow three 
phases of its development, all of which had vital signifi- 
cance for the colony : the friction between the Boers and 
the British Government, the relations with the natives, 
and the work of the London Missionary Society. The 
first two of these are closely interwoven and in an intro- 
ductory survey like the present there need be no formal 
attempt to separate them, the more recent phases of the 
troubles with the Boers being postponed to a later chapter. 
For the work of the missionaries we shall center our atten- 
tion on the heroic figure of David Livingstone. And 
throughout we shall confine ourselves to an effort to clear 
the ground, to understand only the main drift of events. 



1 64 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Two of the most troublesome questions that can beset 
a colony have made it difficult to find a decade of peace in 
the annals of South Africa from the annexation of the 
Cape to the outbreak of the Great War a century later: 
an acute dual nationality problem, and a long frontier be- 
hind which lived in restless savagery powerful and war- 
like tribes of blacks. That the former difficulty might 
have been met and solved by wise and sympathetic man- 
agement is a perfectly tenable proposition — and a most 
fruitless one. History's " might-have-beens " are a singu- 
larly futile subject for speculation. As a matter of re- 
grettable fact the government of Britain in its chequered 
career has seldom handled a difficult matter with less tact. 
Its motives were quite frequently humanitarian and ad- 
mirable ; but now that the quarrels of Briton and Boer are 
a thing of the past one may marvel not at the frequency 
with which the two came into collision but at the long 
intervals of peace. The problem of the natives was sim- 
pler and more familiar. It was bound to be settled ulti- 
mately as it has been settled in America, by the steady 
advance of the white race. The outcome was delayed 
and complicated by the friction among the whites and by 
the academic ignorance of the home government, but the 
end was quite inevitable. 

When the Dutch first came to South Africa the native 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 165 

inhabitants of the Cape and of the country inland for sev- 
eral hundred miles were Bushmen and Hottentots. Just 
to the north there was a group of much more highly de- 
veloped tribes to be included under the general name of 
Bantus, but the Bantu tribes with whom the Dutch had to 
deal they called the Kosas or Kaffirs. These warlike 
savages had apparently been moving slowly down towards 
the southern point of the continent, and between the Euro- 
pean and Kaffir invaders there was naturally a collision. 
Several severe wars were fought before and after the Eng- 
lish conquest, resulting in a gradual movement of the fron- 
tier inland. Now it was just here that the missionaries — 
rightly or wrongly — made their protest. The Kaffirs, 
they declared, were quiet enough when they were honor- 
ably treated, and it was only when robbed, outraged and 
treated like brutes that they resorted to force as the last 
appeal. The powerful influence of the London Mission- 
ary Society was successfully brought to bear on the gov- 
ernment, therefore, with the result that an increasing 
friction began to bje noticeable between the views of the 
colonists and the colonial office. This culminated in the 
thirties, when a series of unfortunate acts brought it to a 
head. 

In 1827 and 1828 the old Dutch method of adminis- 
tering justice was done away with, and officials and forms 



1 66 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

of procedure were substituted according to English ideas 
and with English names. The old burgher senate was 
abolished at the same time, and a notice issued that all 
documents addressed to the government must be written 
in English. Several judges insisted on members of a jury 
being able to speak English, and excluded Dutchmen from 
a jury even when prisoner and witnesses were Dutch 
themselves, and though this was remedied in the course 
of a few years the memory of the insult remained hot. 
In 1828 was also passed an ordinance repealing a restric- 
tive law which had been aimed at the vagrant habits of 
the Hottentots, and placing them in political rights on a 
level with Europeans. In 1833 came the abolition of 
slavery. Now, slavery was not rooted in South Africa as 
it was, say, in Jamaica ; the conditions were quite different, 
and the arguments for the continuance of the institution 
in the West Indies have never been valid for the Cape. 
Still slaves were there — nearly four thousand of them — 
as they had been since the first founding of the colony, and 
they were owned largely by the Dutch farmers. The 
compensation allotted by the British government was less 
than half the estimated value of the slaves, so that the 
whole proceeding was to the colonists as if the crown had 
deliberately and arrogantly deprived them of valuable and 
hard-earned property. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 167 

Finally in December, 1834, came a formidable Kaffir 
war. Twelve thousand warriors crossed the frontier 
without any warning and ravaged the European territory 
for miles, robbing, burning, and murdering. As soon as 
the news reached Cape Town action was vigorously taken. 
Colonel Smith — afterwards better known as Sir Harry 
Smith — took command of the British troops, and by the 
middle of February the invaders were driven back into 
their own country. Up to 18 19 the boundary line be- 
tween Kaffirland and Cape Colony had been the Great 
Fish River. In that year it had been moved on after a 
war to the Keiskamma. Eighty miles past the Keis- 
kamma is the Kei. At the end of March, then, the colo- 
nial troops crossed the Keiskamma and inside of two 
weeks they had driven their opponents over the Kei and 
followed them across. In the peace that followed, the 
governor, Sir Benjamin D'Urban, believing that a heavy 
blow was necessary and that half measures were useless, 
placed the new frontier at the Kei River, eighty miles 
beyond the old one, and transplanted into the conquered 
region some seventeen thousand people who were in search 
of a home, making it a kind of subordinate buffer state 
under the name of the province of Queen Adelaide. He 
went on the assumption, that is to say, that an extension 
of British rule was the only safe solution of the native 



1 68 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

question, an assumption unpleasing to the anti-imperialist 
and the pacifist, but at least intelligible. 

But while nearly the whole colony — including most of 
the missionaries themselves — agreed with the governor's 
action and lauded his firmness and wisdom, some of the 
ablest and most influential representatives of the London 
Missionary Society took the opposite stand, and they 
found a willing listener in the Colonial Secretary, Lord 
Glenelg. Lord Glenelg was a strongly anti-imperialist 
Whig. Moreover he was a man of benevolent feelings, 
easily moved by philanthropic motives, and when able and 
good men represented the Kaffirs to him as a helpless and 
outraged race whose ancestral home was being invaded 
and taken from them by unscrupulous men, he grew to be- 
lieve sincerely that the governor had done the natives a 
grievous wrong. Accordingly he resolved to return the 
new province of Queen Adelaide to the injured Kaffirs. 
So this was done, and Sir Benjamin D'Urban was re- 
called. 

The most notable results can be summed up in two 
statements. First: The Boers looked upon it as the last 
straw. Those who lived near the shaken frontier, know- 
ing how insecure their lives and property must now be, 
decided to move away from the influence of so changeable 
and irritating a government and make new homes for 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 169 

themselves farther north and east. Secondly: The 
Kaffirs believed that for some inscrutable reason their 
enemies had become afraid of them, and that for future 
raids no severe punishment was to be feared. The can- 
celing of D'Urban's act of settlement accordingly brought 
another forty years of trouble before the final and com- 
plete adoption of his policy in 1878. The whole of the 
land of the Kaffirs in that year became finally and entirely 
subject to the British crown and was annexed to the Cape 
Colony. But it was forty years too late for the preserva- 
tion of good feeling between the Boers and England, 
for in 1836 the Great Trek had taken place which ended 
in the founding of the Orange Free State and the South 
African Republic. 

Long before these events, while the Dutch East India 
Company was still ruling Cape Colony, was born to the 
chief of an insignificant Bantu tribe a son whom he named 
Chaka. As the child gre¥/ to boyhood he quarreled with 
his father and finally he and his mother fled by night and 
took refuge with a more powerful chief named Dingis- 
wayo. Now Dingiswayo was a man cunning in war, and 
having heard of the European method of organizing an 
army, he adopted the idea as far as his limited opportuni- 
ties permitted and formed his soldiers into well-drilled 
regiments. Into this army Chaka entered and by virtue 



i 7 o IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

of immense physical strength, great skill in the use of 
weapons, and general aptitude for war, he rapidly rose to 
be one of Dingiswayo's best and most trusted officers. 
When the old chief died, therefore, the army at once 
raised Chaka to his place, and all those who now obeyed 
the new leader called themselves by the name of his 
tribe, — the now terrible name of Zulu. 

The organization and arms of Dingiswayo's army were 
improved by his successor; the Zulu regiments became the 
most formidable engines of war in South Africa; and 
their chief was only too anxious not to let them rust for 
lack of use. On tribe after tribe he hurled his army and 
blotted them out, — slaying all but the girls and boys who 
were thought fit for incorporation into the conquering na- 
tion, — all somewhat after the manner of the Iroquois but 
with a more bloodthirsty desire to kill. In 1827 General 
Bourke, acting governor of the Cape, put this suggestive 
remark in a note to the secretary of state, " The interior 
of Africa at no great distance from this settlement ap- 
pears to be in a state of great commotion and for some 
years past various powerful tribes have been pressing to 
the southward, driving the weaker ones before them, from 
whom many fugitives, under different appellations, have 
obtained refuge in the colony." It was the work of the 
Zulus. Their invincible and merciless power drove tribe 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 171 

after tribe to choose between annihilation and flight. 
Those who fled seemed to have caught the fierce spirit of 
their pursuers, for they also slaughtered as they went, 
until the very demon of murder and dismay seemed to 
possess the whole region south of the Zambesi. 

One of the districts cleared of its inhabitants by Chaka 
was that covered by the modern colony of Natal. The 
name had been given to the coast as far back as Vasco da 
Gama, but it was not settled by Europeans until 1827. 
In that year several Englishmen cultivated the friendship 
of the Zulu king and obtained from him a grant of Port 
Natal with the surrounding territory one hundred miles 
inland. Fugitives from various tribes gathered around 
the white men and it became a fairly prosperous settle- 
ment under the protection of Chaka, while after his assas- 
sination in 1828 the new king, Dingaan, was even more 
careful to cultivate the friendship and confidence of the 
English. Missionaries came, a church was built, and a 
town laid out which was christened Durban after the ener- 
getic governor of the Cape. 

In 1836 came the great Boer emigration, and Natal 
received its share of the moving farmers. And now 
occurred the first collision between Europeans and Zulus. 
Suspicious of the migrating host, Dingaan treacherously 
fell upon a body of three hundred men, women and chil- 



172 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

dren and massacred them all. A body of troops sent to 
aid the distressed people was defeated and its leaders 
killed. Things looked black for the colony until in 1838 
an army of resolute Dutch farmers under an able leader — 
Andries Pretorius, after whom the Transvaal capital is 
named — invaded the country of Dingaan and on the 
banks of the Blood River overthrew the Zulu army and 
killed some three thousand of its warriors. For the time 
then, the land had rest. 

Forty uneasy years went by, and it came to pass that 
Cetewayo, son of Panda, was king of the Zulus. Much 
had happened since the defeat of Dingaan at the Blood 
River. The Boers, freed by their own efforts from the 
Zulus and Matabele, had formed scattered settlements 
far inland past the Orange and the Vaal rivers. Natal 
had become British territory, while by the Sand River 
Convention in 1852 and the Bloemfontein Convention in 
1854 the Transvaal and Orange republics had been recog- 
nized as independent states. But the Transvaal in those 
days scarcely deserved the name of a state, and between 
1852 and 1877 trouble was brewing up there. The 
farmers with the narrowness of intense ignorance and 
the irresponsibility of a land in which every man lived to 
a considerable extent unto himself, trod on the rights of 
every tribe in their neighborhood, excited a hostility to 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 173 

the whites which blocked trade and menaced the British 
colonies, and became a distinct nuisance to all South Af- 
rica. The British governors tried both to restrain the 
Boers and to keep the irritated Zulus from attacking them, 
only with the result of exasperating the latter and doing 
no good. Finally, under circumstances which we need 
not relate, the knot was cut by the annexation of 
the Transvaal to British territory in 1877, an d England 
now took over the problem of restoring confidence and 
atoning for the lack of law and responsibility which had 
prevailed under the Dutch regime. 

But it was too late as far as the Zulus were concerned. 
Cetewayo had always been the friend of the English as 
long as the Dutch republic was still there, but now the 
balance of power was overthrown, and the Zulu king 
found himself hemmed in by a power that was apparently 
bent on a policy of annexation. The savage method of 
expressing fear and distrust is* by depredation and inso- 
lence; the Zulu proceedings on the Natal frontier soon 
demanded remonstrance, and a courteous message of 
December, 1878, containing liberal concessions but de- 
manding cessation of outrages and immediate compensa- 
tion, was left unanrwered. War was the inevitable con- 
sequence. 

In January, 1879, Zululand was invaded by three col- 



174 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

iimns under the command of Lord Chelmsford, the gen- 
eral leading in person the central division across the Buf- 
falo River at Rorke's Drift. About ten miles east of the 
ford the army camped by the steep, lonely hill of Isand- 
lana, and on January 22, Lord Chelmsford moved off a 
few miles with half his force to support a reconnoitering 
party. Orders were left to those who remained behind 
that they should hold themselves within the camp, and 
then the two divisions were parted for the day. In the 
evening when the general came back to his camp he found 
no sign of life. Eight hundred Englishmen and five hun- 
dred native allies lay there dead at the hands of Cete- 
wayo's Zulus. The savage chief had played the ancient 
stratagem of attacking with a small force and retreating. 
The English had lost their heads, had followed the enemy, 
and had been surrounded and cut off by thousands of 
warriors. After the desperate struggle was over the tri- 
umphant Zulus proceeded to Rorke's Drift, where a little 
garrison of ninety-six men had been left to defend the 
ford. From half-past four in the afternoon till four next 
morning the little band of Englishmen held their post — 
a mere makeshift hospital containing forty sick men be- 
sides its defenders — against three thousand Zulus. At 
dawn the appearance of Lord Chelmsford, who had 
marched from the desolate camp at Isandlana, made the 



THE BEGINNINGS OP SOUTH AFRICA 175 

enemy retire. So melancholy a disaster and so brilliant 
a defense in the same day turned the attention of the 
world to South Africa. Reinforcements came to Zulu- 
land from the Cape, from Ceylon, and from England. 
A victory at Kambula brought Cetewayo to his knees, and 
the battle of Ulundi on the fourth of July ended the war. 
Since then England has had many fierce fights with the 
natives, but none to compare with her struggle with the 
Zulus. Only one — the Matabele War — can be men- 
tioned in the same breath, and the Matabele were really 
a section of the Zulus, with the same traditions and the 
same military organization and discipline. 

On November 4, 1794, was held the first meeting of 
the London Missionary Society. In March, 1799, four 
of its missionaries landed at the Cape and began the work 
which was to be marked by the great names of Moffat and 
Livingstone. Their first labors were with the Hotten- 
tots and the Bantu tribes known as the Kosas or Kaffirs, 
but not satisfied with this they pushed their stations far- 
ther and farther inland until they were preaching the 
Gospel and teaching the arts of civilized life far beyond 
the bounds of Cape Colony. Gradually they acquired 
great influence. Their intellectual superiority, their ap- 
parently supernatural knowledge of the laws of nature, 
their indifference to danger, their fervent enthusiasm, all 



176 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

powerfully affected the fierce but simple-minded natives, 
until in many cases the missionary became the all-powerful 
prime minister of a great chief. 

Perhaps even their uplifting effect on the savage tribes 
was not more important to them than was their service to 
civilization as its pioneers. Few merchants, except the 
fierce slave-traders, marching at the head of armed bands, 
would venture into the wilderness with the simple courage 
of the self-devoted missionary. And perhaps when the 
high precepts of the religion of Christ penetrated but 
slightly into the crude minds and fierce hearts of the 
blacks, there remained fixed with some persistence the 
lessons of civilized living, the beginnings of a more ra- 
tional life, the first faint stirring of the divine restlessness 
and longing for something better than their degradation 
which might do for the Hottentot and Zulu what the 
lessons of Boniface did for the savages of Germany. 
Feeble as the result must have seemed, the work of the 
missionaries was tremendously worth doing. The Hot- 
tentots and Kaffirs of South Africa are not like the Aus- 
tralian blacks or the American Indians as regards the 
effects of European civilization. They thrive instead of 
withering in its presence, and in Cape Colony with a total 
population of 2,600,000 the colored inhabitants number 
1,980,000, or over 75 per cent. Any efforts directed to- 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 177 

ward civilizing the natives are of untold value to the col- 
ony, and in such efforts the missionaries have been easily 
foremost. But in order to really appreciate the point of 
all this we must take a concrete example, and that example 
may as well be the greatest. Even the simplest narrative 
of the work of David Livingstone is an epic, condensed, 
it is true, but holding in its bare facts and uncouth names 
all the majesty, the mystery, the terror, and the poetry of 
the Dark Continent. 

David Livingstone was born at Blantyre, on the Clyde, 
near Glasgow, March 19, 18 13. His parents were poor 
people of lowly station in life, for which he was always 
in later life unfeignedly thankful. Not that he was par- 
ticularly democratic. " The mass of the working people 
of Scotland," he wrote himself, " have read history, and 
are no levelers. They rejoice in the memories of Wal- 
lace and Bruce, ' and a' the lave.' While foreigners imag- 
ine we want the spirit to overturn aristocracy, we in truth 
hate those stupid revolutions which sweep away time- 
honored institutions, dear alike to rich and poor." But 
there was a training in poverty, and a discipline in his 
hard environment whose value was beyond question — 
little as he could in boyhood foresee the peculiar need for 
endurance and patience which life was to bring him. 
His father was a stern, keen, religious Scot of the old 



178 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

school, and many a thrashing was earned for the boy by 
his preference for sciences to " The Cloud of Witnesses " 
and Wilberforce's " Practical Christianity." Yet he re- 
sponded heartily to the best things in his father's and 
mother's teaching. His boyhood was of the kind that is 
good to contemplate, — healthy and sound physically, 
mentally, and spiritually. That is to say, he was an ordi- 
nary boy of the best type, a good walker, a good swim- 
mer, a lover of healthy pleasure, and yet one who would 
willingly help his mother and even scrub the floor for her 
— albeit with the door barred against the observation of 
his companions. At the age of ten he started to work 
in a cotton mill; but he was true to his Scotch instinct, and 
his first week's wages bought a book wherewith to con- 
tinue his studies. For he was already showing that per- 
sistence which in later life became almost terrible. He 
was convinced that only by hard work and study could he 
make anything of himself and life that would be worth 
while. And once this conviction was reached only over- 
whelming disaster could have thrust him from the path 
he had set himself to tread. This amazing strength of 
will combined with his utter self-devotion made him one 
of the world's great men, — the David Livingstone before 
whom good men and bad men alike bow as to a king. 
So much for his training. At the age of twenty-five he 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 179 

decided to be a medical missionary (he had already been 
studying medicine for some years, earning money in the 
summer and attending lectures in the winter at Glasgow) 
and on December 8, 1840, having received his degree the 
preceding month, he sailed for South Africa under the 
direction of the London Missionary Society. After a 
voyage of five months he landed at the Cape, and met 
there his first great disappointment. For to his dismay 
he found that there were already too many missionaries 
there, and that they were most lamentably divided into 
cliques, spending their best energy in quarrels and dispu- 
tation. He himself aroused fierce accusations against his 
orthodoxy by a sermon that he preached there, and he was 
filled with indignation and disgust. Judging by the Cape, 
there were already too many laborers in the vineyard. 

But Livingstone realized that no such difficulties existed 
in the interior. At Algoa Bay he started in an ox-wagon 
for Dr. Moffat's station at Kuruman, seven hundred miles 
from the coast. There under a congenial and great- 
hearted preceptor, he set himself to learn the language, to 
estimate the character and needs of the people, and to 
use his medical skill. This last was of immense value to 
him, and though the simple-minded natives often made 
impossible demands yet the relief he could give to many 
of them was very great. With his natural tact, good- 



180 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

nature, common sense and dignity he soon acquired no 
small influence throughout a considerable part of Bechuan- 
aland, for he made frequent tours that carried him hun- 
dreds of miles from Kuruman, and his mastery of the 
language rivaled that of Moffat himself. " I have an 
immense practice," he wrote to Sir Risden Bennett; " pa- 
tients walk one hundred and thirty miles for my advice. 
This is the country for a medical man, but he must leave 
fees out of the question. ' They have much more disease 
than I expected. They are nearly naked, and endure the 
scorching heat of the day and the chills at night in that 
condition. Add to this that they are absolutely omniv- 
orous. Indigestion, rheumatism, ophthalmia are the pre- 
vailing diseases." 

After two years' work at Kuruman he moved two hun- 
dred miles farther up country to the valley of Mabotsa — 
where he had the adventure with a lion of which we have 
all read. Years afterward when his body was brought by 
his faithful followers to England it was the false joint in 
his arm caused by the lion's bite that enabled his friends 
to identify with certainty the great explorer's mortal re- 
mains. But that was all far distant then, and it is almost 
with a chuckle of reminiscent excitement that he tells the 
story in the " Missionary Travels and Researches." In 
1844: " I screwed up my courage (at Kuruman) to put 



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AFRICA IN 1918: THE CAPE TO CAIRO RAILROAD 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 181 

a question beneath one of the fruit-trees, the result of 
which was that I became united in marriage to Mr. Mof- 
fat's eldest daughter Mary. Having been born in the 
country, and being expert in household matters, she was 
always the best spoke in the wheel at home : and when I 
took her on two occasions to Lake Ngami and far be- 
yond, she endured more than some who have written large 
books of travels. " There was a year of happy married 
life at Mabotsa, another, forty miles north at Chounam, 
still another forty miles north again at Kolobeng, and 
then the events began to take shape which finally turned 
the devoted missionary into an explorer. 

The daily life of these two is epitomized in a letter that 
shows no sign of the coming change : 

Building, gardening, cobbling, doctoring, tinkering, carpen- 
tering, gunmending, farriering, wagon-mending, preaching, 
schooling, lecturing on physics according to my means, besides a 
chair in divinity to a class of three, fill up my time. . . . My wife 
made candles, soap, and clothes, and thus we have attained to the 
indispensable accomplishments of a missionary family in Central 
Africa — the husband a jack-of -all-trades without doors, and the 
wife a maid-of-all-work within. 

But two great shadows stood over the little mission at 
Kolobeng and threatened its destruction. To the east lay 
the Transvaal, whence armed parties of Boers came ever 
and anon to raid the native villages for slaves. And 



1 82 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

there came a long, severe drought which must surely, 
thought the savages, be the punishment sent by their angry 
gods for the crime of turning to the new God of Living- 
stone. No personal hostility was involved in this, for 
they loved the kindly teacher who had brought them wis- 
dom and had healed them in sickness. But no rain came, 
and the stream was drying up, so the gods must assuredly 
be angry, and wise as the white man was, neither he nor 
his God could bring an end to the drought. He could 
and did help for a time by personal entreaty to hold off 
attacks from the Boers. But it could only be for a time, 
for his point of view irritated them. To them the natives 
were good only for slaves, — otherwise to be killed on 
sight as one might a mosquito. " You must teach the 
blacks that they are not our equals," they said to Living- 
stone. " You might as well try to teach the baboons." 
To which the missionary quietly replied by offering to test 
whether the Boers could read better than his native attend- 
ants, — an answer conclusive to him, but only irritating to 
the stubborn minds of the Dutch. 

The only remedy for the situation was to be found in 
migration. But on the east lay the Transvaal, on the 
south were the villages of the Bechuanas, on the west and 
north stretched the waste of the Kalahari desert. There 
was rumor, indeed, of a lake far north, beyond the desert, 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 183 

and of a great chief who welcomed strangers to the broad 
lands of the Makololo. No white man had ever crossed 
the Kalahari, but if it could be done a refuge might be 
found for the friends of Livingstone. Just as the mis- 
sionary was anxiously debating the matter with himself 
there came from the south two English hunters, Oswell 
and Murray, both of them brave, high-minded and enter- 
prising men, and to them Livingstone unfolded his prob- 
lem. They at once seized with eagerness on the plan of 
crossing the desert, volunteered to join him, and on the 
first of June, 1849, started off on what proved to be a 
toilsome and even perilous journey, — the first of Living- 
stone's explorations. It was wholly successful. Lake 
Ngami was discovered on the first of August and with it 
a beautiful country of lakes and rivers and great trees, so, 
though they could not then penetrate to the country of the 
Makololo, they returned to Kolobeng with the good news. 
They were only just in time, for the tribe was on the brink 
of destruction, but now the drought began to come to an 
end, and Kolobeng was not wholly deserted just yet. 

After another journey to Lake Ngami, a conference 
with the chief of the Makololo, and a further excursion 
to the north with Oswell ending in the discovery of the 
Zambesi, Livingstone came % to a definite decision as to his 
duty. His children were suffering from fever, and ought 



1 84 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

to go home with their mother to England while he re- 
turned to the interior. For a vast field north of Lake 
Ngami called him with a stern insistence from which he 
could not escape. He knew well that for one man who 
would penetrate into the unknown wilderness and defy 
its privations there were scores who would follow. He 
doubtless saw as clearly as we do the evils that would 
creep into Central Africa in the track of the white men. 
But no reader of Livingstone's own narrative will ques- 
tion for a moment his decision that the unspeakable evils 
and darkness that he saw there far exceeded any that 
might come from unworthy whites who would follow him 
in the years to come. European civilization, or let us 
say British civilization, was not ideal. Livingstone would 
not have claimed that it was or that he could expect all 
Englishmen in Africa to have his own single-minded devo- 
tion to the good of his fellow-men and the extension of the 
religion and principles of Christ. But taken all in all 
England stood for light, for righteousness, and for prog- 
ress; Central Africa was dark, degraded and stagnant. 
One man could not uplift a continent. But one man could 
break a path into the wilderness and let in the light, and 
this Livingstone increasingly felt that he was called of 
God to do. To the directors of the London Missionary 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 185 

Society he stated his resolve in a letter full of pathos and 
deadly earnestness : 

Nothing but a strong conviction that the step will lead to the 
glory of Christ would make me orphanize my children. Even now 
my bowels yearn over them. They will forget me; but I hope 
when the day of trial comes I shall not be found a more sorry 
soldier than those who serve an earthly sovereign. Should you 
not feel yourself justified in incurring the expense of their support 
in England I shall feel called upon to renounce the hope of carry- 
ing the Gospel into that country. But stay. I am not sure. 
So powerfully am I convinced that it is the will of our Lord I 
should, I will go, no matter who opposes; but from you I expect 
nothing but encouragement. I know you wish as ardently as I 
can that all the world may be filled with the glory of the Lord. 

So on April 23, 1852, he saw his wife and four chil- 
dren off for England, and turned once more from Cape 
Town to the interior with aching heart and unswerving 
determination. All the home he had was at Kolobeng, 
but before he reached it bad news came in a letter from 
the chief, Sechele. Its purport is sufficiently told in a 
letter written by Livingstone to his wife a few days after, 
in which he tells the story — an old one in South Africa — 
of a Boer raid. 

The Boers [he wrote,] gutted our house. They brought four 
wagons down, and took away sofa, table, bed, all the crockery, 
your desk (I hope it had nothing in it. Have you the letters?), 
smashed the wooden chairs, took away the iron ones, tore out the 



1 86 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

leaves of all the books and scattered them in front of the house; 
smashed the medicine bottles, windows, oven door, took away 
the Smith-bellows, anvil, all the tools, three corn mills, a bag of 
coffee for which I paid £6, and lots of coffee, tea, sugar, which 
the gentlemen who went north left. . . . They set fire to the 
town, and the heat forced the women to fly, and the men to huddle 
together on the small hill in the middle of the town. The smoke 
prevented them seeing the Boers, and the cannon killed sixty 
Bakwains. The Boers then came near to kill and destroy them 
all; but the Bakwains killed thirty-five of them and many horses. 
They fought the whole day; but the Boers could not dislodge 
them. . . . [And in a letter to a friend he adds] — The Boers 
are mad with rage against me because my people fought bravely. 
It was I, they think, that taught them to shoot Boers. Fancy 
your Reverend Friend teaching the young idea to shoot Boers, 
and praying for a blessing on the work of his hands. 

So much for the cooperation he could expect from the 
only white neighbors he had, in his lonely struggle for the 
uplifting of the black race that he loved and believed in. 

But now, leaving Boers and Bakwains far behind him, 
he turned resolutely to the north, was received with royal 
welcome by his friends the Makololo, gathered among 
them a little group of followers — childlike of mind, 
dauntless of heart, and true as steel — and launched his 
canoes on the Zambesi. This was the river he and Os- 
well had discovered. Now he intended to explore it to 
its source and penetrate to the Portuguese settlements on 
the west coast. In February, 1854, after three weary 
months, he reached the watershed marked by Lake Dilolo, 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 187 

whence he pushed on by rivers and overland to the town of 
St. Paul de Loanda. How to paint the heart-breaking 
weariness, the pangs and weakness of fever, the constant 
need of cheering and aiding his black followers, the dan- 
ger from savage beasts and cunning foes who would block 
his path, the infinite need of patience, hope, tact, and cour- 
age which burdened the spirit of the great explorer in the 
long march, would daunt the pen of the most reckless 
chronicler. One would not marvel so much if he had kept 
his strength. But he was no man of iron, impervious to 
the attacks of heat or chill or fever. Day after day he 
would push doggedly on with head giddy and bursting, 
with his hand shaking too much to permit of correct use 
of his instruments for observation, and with his whole 
frame weakened by illness, fatigue, and privation. Not 
all of his men were as faithful as the Makololo, and once 
mutiny showed itself. He had given the grumblers an 
ox to kill and lain down in his tent, half in a stupor with 
headache and fever. But the din they made over their 
fire was intolerable, and his third request for quiet was 
answered by "an impudent laugh. Knowing that disci- 
pline would be at an end if this mutiny was not quelled, 
and that our lives depended on vigorously upholding au- 
thority, I seized a double-barreled pistol and darted out 
with such a savage aspect as to put them to precipitate 



1 88 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

flight. They gave no further trouble." Every chief 
through whose land they marched demanded tolls and 
presents. And when at last the Portuguese settlements 
were reached the explorer was dangerously near to the 
end of his strength. Happily both the Portuguese and 
the one Englishman in St. Paul de Loanda outdid them- 
selves in courtesy and kindness. Livingstone was cared 
for by generous friends and by the surgeon of an English 
man-of-war opportunely in the harbor, though only after 
seven months of rest was he finally himself again, 
ready for his return journey eastward. 

Here in Angola, along the borders of which province 
he was exploring during the later part of 1854 and the 
first months of 1855, he met again the old enemy that 
had so angered him at the border of the Transvaal, — 
slavery and the slave trade. During the remainder of 
his life there was nothing that he set himself so earnestly 
to combat. But here there was little that he could do. 
He simply saw — and his published opinion later on an- 
gered the Portuguese not a little — that as long as slavery 
prevailed with its degradation, its inter-tribal wars, its 
raids of the strong on the weak, no healthy traffic could be 
opened between this coast and the interior. He reached 
a similar conclusion regarding the east coast a year later, 
where his path from Quilimane to the Victoria Falls was 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 189 

at once used by the slave traders. And thereafter he 
declared war more than ever against the desperate evil of 
this " open sore of the world," as he called it. 1 But in 
the meantime his prime business was to blaze a trail and 
to make plain to himself and the world the whole course 
of the Zambesi. So back to his starting point he went, 
and thence past the Victoria Falls — seen and named by 
him first of all white men, so far as is known — clear 
through to the east coast. It was three years (April, '53- 
May, '56) since he had seen the ship at Cape Town bear 
his wife and children home to England, and during those 
three years his perseverance and devotion had made nec- 
essary an entire reconstruction of the map of South 
Africa. 

But is not this enough to make clear our conception of 
this missionary pioneer of empire? We cannot tell the 
full story of his life, and this little fragment will suffi- 
ciently show that which we wish to emphasize. We have 
seen that the road to the country of the Chartered Com- 
pany and Cecil Rhodes was opened not by an ambitious 
conqueror or cold imperialist but by the noblest and least 
selfish of modern apostles. Here was a man who rebuked 

1 In a letter to the New York Herald, whose closing words are inscribed 
on Livingstone's tomb in Westminster Abbey. " All I can add in my lone- 
liness is, may Heaven's rich blessings come down on every one, American, 
English, or Turk, who will help to heal the open sore of the world." 



190 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

the Boers for cruelty and selfishness before Johannesburg 
was dreamed of, who strove to turn the paths of com- 
merce away from Sofala and Angola and to open up a 
British road from the interior to the coast long before the 
wildest visionary could have looked for the vast creation 
of a British South Africa from Tanganyika and Nyassa 
to the Cape. And. he did it with his eyes open — not to 
the coming of empire, indeed, but to the certain coming 
of his countrymen. " I beg to direct your attention to 
Africa," he said earnestly at Cambridge during his year 
home in 1857. " I know that in a few years I shall be 
cut off in that country, which is now open. Do not let it 
be shut again. I go back to Africa to try to open a path 
for commerce and Christianity; do you carry out the work 
which I have begun." He did go back, under the direc- 
tion of the British Government this time, to explore the 
river Shire and Lake Nyassa, and then later on the coun- 
try about Lakes Tanganyika and Bangweolo. We cannot 
even outline his bitter struggles with the Arab slave 
traders, his failures and disappointments, his loss of his 
true-hearted wife — buried in the forest by the great 
baobab tree on " Shupanga brae " — his well-known relief 
by Stanley after one period of two years, utter submer- 
gence in the wilderness, and his lonely death in the marshy 
jungles south of Lake Bangweolo. All through there 



THE BEGINNINGS OF SOUTH AFRICA 191 

was the same indomitable energy, the same refusal to 
regard anything but his duty, the same single-hearted 
earnestness in opening the way for the light to enter. 

So now we have studied the beginnings of England's 
empire in three continents, through the instrumentality of 
three very different men, — Clive, Cook, and Livingstone. 
All saw what they were doing, and did it with their might. 
Not one saw the empire even in vision. Each one, sol- 
dier, sailor, and missionary, did his duty as he saw it far 
away from the little home island that all three loved; 
and from their graves sprang the Imperial England of 
which they and many others of whom they are the types 
were — all unknowing — the founders. 



IX 

THE DOMINION OF CANADA 

It is nearly four hundred years now since Cartier sur- 
veyed from the summit of Mount Royal the glorious ex- 
panse of forest and the mighty sweep of river that were 
then part of an utter wilderness. The Pilgrim Fathers 
were yet unborn. Drake and Raleigh, Shakespeare and 
Spenser, John Smith and William Penn were names yet 
hidden in unturned pages of the book of Fate. Modern 
Europe was barely emerging from the Middle Ages, and 
the gallant sailor of St. Malo was himself one of those 
who were opening the world's dim eyes to broader vi- 
sions and brighter light. It was not simply a wilderness 
to him, this grand valley of the St. Lawrence. It was 
the gateway of infinite possibilities, a new world to be 
won from Satan to Christ, from the dominion of painted 
savages to the proud lordship of France. But genera- 
tions passed, and the patient, heroic Champlain, the fiery 
Frontenac, the indomitable La Salle, the gallant Mont- 
calm with their comrades built up a colony only to have 
it pass into the hands of the detested English. They 

192 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 193 

were indeed attempting to create an anachronism. Feud- 
alism even in Europe was in the last stages of decay when 
Champlain landed at Quebec. To transplant it to the 
New World was as futile as to plant an aged, rotting 
oak in new soil with the hope of seeing it grow young 
again. The genius of Richelieu, the pride of Louis XIV, 
the all-seeing brain of Colbert, the courage of genera- 
tions of gallant Frenchmen exhausted themselves in the 
effort to achieve the impossible. So with the defeat of 
Montcalm the task of taking their work and making it 
fruitful fell to the conquerors. The vast country over 
which Cartier saw floating in vision the lilies of France 
is dotted with the red ensign of England. The birth- 
right of the countrymen of La Salle has passed to the 
countrymen of Pitt and Wolfe. 

The discussions of a few years ago as to the govern- 
ment of the conquered South African Republic would 
scarcely have troubled the world of 1760. But in any 
case the conditions of Canada had no resemblance to 
those in the Transvaal. New France was populated 
solely by Frenchmen and their families, conquered after 
a bitter and equal struggle. To grant such a province 
self-government would have been mere madness. And 
yet for England to adopt entirely and with a view to 
permanence the autocratic government and feudal forms 



i 9 4 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

of France would have been self-contradictory. So the 
question was settled, as was to be expected with a race 
not given to the prolonged contemplation of a puzzling 
problem, in a rough-and-ready provisional fashion. The 
country was divided into three districts with headquar- 
ters at Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal. These 
were administered by three generals after the well-known 
example set by Oliver Cromwell, with military officers 
scattered over the country to look after the details of 
government. But practically, beyond a certain benev- 
olent supervision, the duties of these officers were re- 
stricted to the preserving of order and the administra- 
tion of criminal law. As a matter of fact things were 
done much as they had been done before the conquest. 
The church received its tithes. The landlords — the 
seigneurs — received their rents in kind and in service. 
And priests, seigneurs, and notables constituted as before 
the actual heads of the people. 

For a provisional arrangement this worked admirably. 
If the people had no rights beyond the moral right of 
fair treatment they had had no more than that under the 
old regime. The misgovernment of their last Intendant, 
the infamous Bigot, might well make them contrast the 
justice and business-like orderliness of the new rule with 
the confusion and the oppression of the war days, and 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 195 

for a time there was contentment. But the inevitable 
happened. Immigrants from the British Islands drifted 
across the Atlantic — "men of mean education, traders, 
mechanics, publicans, followers of the army," as Gov- 
ernor Murray contemptuously called them — who clam- 
ored at once for a share in the government. And the 
French themselves began to catch something of the spirit 
of their new flag and murmur for privileges of which 
they and their fathers had known nothing for generations. 
The more active minded among them realized that mili- 
tary government under the British flag and in America 
was an anomaly. The educated men of New France 
were not unaware of the ideas of Montesquieu, nor were 
they wholly out of touch with the currents of thought 
that were carrying the countrymen of Voltaire and Rous- 
seau to the whirlpool of the Revolution. Vague theories 
and aspirations regarding individual liberty were quick- 
ened into practical life by the fortune of war that made 
them the political heirs of Simon de Montfort and Oliver 
Cromwell. And the citizens of Montreal and Quebec 
began to agitate for relief from the pressure of a better 
government than any the French race had enjoyed since 
the time of Colbert. 

Moreover the demand for a measure of self-govern- 
ment was based on a sound principle. The answer to the 



196 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

agitators that would point to the oppression and autocracy 
of the old regime was no answer. The French flag had 
given place to the English. A line of argument that be- 
fitted the government of Louis XV could not be used 
without shame even by the administration of Lord North. 
For the conquerors to adopt the political ideals of the 
conquered would have been an absurdity — treason to 
the best traditions of the race. Sooner or later, if Eng- 
land remained England, the soldiers of Montcalm and 
their sons would have to be allowed a share in the gov- 
ernment of their country such as Montcalm himself would 
never have given them. Not that such a principle ap- 
peared in any tangible shape before the minds of English 
statesmen. Englishmen consent to theorize about poli- 
tics only after their practical sense of what is worth while 
and what is possible has enabled them to hammer and 
blunder and hew through a problem to a triumphant se- 
renity. Our conception of the place of Magna Charta in 
English history would have greatly bewildered any of 
the stalwart barons who saw King John sign it at Runny- 
mede. And our interpretation of English liberty would 
have been shocking enough to George III. But the fact 
remains that without any clearly formed principle to 
justify them, the advisers of the very king who drove the 
American colonies into revolt took steps in Canada which 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 197 

meant concessions at once and meant, in time, representa- 
tive self-government. 

So in the fall of 1763, while the war with Pontiac 
was still shaking the newly conquered province, a royal 
proclamation established four new governments in Amer- 
ica, one of which was Quebec. The governors were 
empowered to summon general assemblies and to make 
laws with the consent of the representatives of the people. 
The existing laws of England requiring the oath of su- 
premacy and a declaration against transubstantiation 
made the proclamation really a dead letter, indeed, but 
the intention is obvious nevertheless. And the interest 
of it is not lessened by the fact that it was issued only a 
year and a half before the Stamp Act, while George 
Grenville was First Minister of the Crown. No assem- 
bly, as a matter of fact, ever met, and government in 
Canada from 1763 to 1774 was actually conducted by a 
governor-general (Murray, a man of high principles and 
ability) and an executive council chosen by him from the 
leading men of the colony. So that while during this 
time there was good government, yet no one could view 
the matter as being settled. The English-speaking resi- 
dents, still few in number but steadily increasing, wanted 
English law and English judges and officials. Petitions 
were sent over to Westminster in both languages and 



198 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

with varying requests. And it was for the king and his 
advisers to determine whether this discontent was only 
the natural and temporary result of a difficult situation, 
or whether it was the sign of evils that could be remedied. 
In the latter event there lay some embarrassment in the 
fact that the demands of English and French Canadians 
were diametrically opposed. Neither the English in Can- 
ada nor the authorities at home cared yet to erect a 
representative assembly which could place authority in 
the hands of people only recently in arms against the 
country that now ruled them. Yet there was a certain 
absurdity and injustice in giving power to four hundred 
English immigrants and withholding it from the seventy 
thousand old inhabitants. Wise decision was not easy, 
and the men in authority at Westminster in 1774 were 
assuredly none too wise. But impelled to some action 
by the necessity of preserving peace in Canada during 
the rising tempest in the English colonies further south, 
the government pf Lord North at last passed the Quebec 
Act. 

The territorial clauses of the Quebec Act were speed- 
ily to be modified, if not nullified, by the American War 
of Independence and may be ignored. More important, 
because more permanent, were the provisions that defi- 
nitely assured to the French Canadians their own Ian- 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 199 

guage and laws. As a result of these Quebec is to this 
day essentially French, — not in national feeling but in 
speech and customs. That this has been and is still a 
serious embarrassment to Canadian life and progress few 
will deny, and yet the careless magnanimity of such an 
act must appeal to a democratic and idealistic age. It 
may have been poor statesmanship : but there was some- 
thing refreshingly human and sportsmanlike in the re- 
fusal to impose an alien law on the conquered population 
of New France. It was indeed the result of no consistent 
policy. The government that passed the Quebec Act was 
sending armies overseas to coerce the rebellious citizens 
of Massachusetts and Virginia, and two generations later 
the legal recognition of the Dutch language was refused 
to the Boers of Cape Colony. Not for many years and 
not until the mother country herself had broken through 
the restraint of old constitutional traditions, did Britain 
begin to feel her way towards some definite and per- 
manent principle in colonial government. 1 But in this 
measure of a corrupt and unhonored ministry one may 
see at least a gleam of generosity, of desire to deal not 
too hardly with a population still hurt by their defeat, 
still troubled and suspicious. 

!The Reform Bill of 1832 is, of course, the great landmark in the 
change. It ended the rule of the eighteenth century " oligarchy." 



200 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

We must admit, however, that cynical minds, in Lord 
North's day and in our own, have questioned this matter 
of generosity. And it is even more difficult to make any 
confident statement in regard to the wisdom or unwisdom 
of the Act, aside from the undeniable short-sightedness 
of its territorial provisions. There are moments, indeed, 
when it strikes one chiefly as a device for shelving a prob- 
lem too intricate to be easily solved. Lord North and 
Wedderburn were hardly the men and the year after the 
Boston Tea Party was hardly the time for a really states- 
manlike colonial measure. The ministry, as all the world 
knows, was a ministry of political opportunists, and one 
cannot blame those who have asserted that the Quebec 
Act was framed purely to meet an immediate situation. 
Thousands of the earnest, justice-loving people of Eng- 
land who were then as now the real backbone of the 
nation were watching with sorrow and misgiving the 
shameful conflicts of the House of c Commons with Wilkes, 
and were trying in troubled perplexity to find out the rea- 
sons for the lamentable state of affairs in America. 
These might surely be placated by the generous spectacle 
of a conquered people being freely left with their lan- 
guage, their religion and their institutions, while the 
power of the Crown was amply safeguarded by the re- 
tention of all rights of government. But unfortunately 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 201 

the tribunes of the people and the greatest men in the 
British Parliament — Chatham, Barre, Burke, and their 
like — were all against the Act, and if it was scarcely 
the " cruel and odious measure " that Chatham called it, 
yet little inclination was displayed to pay reverence to 
that most contemptible of cabinets as a group of philan- 
thropists. 

Certainly in establishing French civil law and making 
no provision whatever for self-government the Quebec 
Act betrayed entire blindness to the possibility of future 
English immigration into the valley of the St. Lawrence 
and the vast country beyond. It not only handed over 
the English who were already settled in New France 
to French law, but extended the boundaries of Quebec 
to the Ohio and the Mississippi on the one hand and the 
Hudson's Bay Territory on the other. And it made per- 
manent the very things that stood in the way of the 
healthy development of Canada as a British colony, — the 
French language, French law, and institutions which had 
proved a failure in New France and were soon to be 
swept away in the mother land. That is to say, it was 
an Act passed for immediate results. It assumed that 
conditions in Canada were static. It ignored the fact that 
the future of America was to be in English hands, not 
French. 



202 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Nevertheless it did conciliate the French Canadians, 
and when the forces of Arnold and Montgomery invaded 
Canada the sons of those who had defended Quebec 
against the troops of England now fought as valiantly 
against the army of the Continental Congress. So Can- 
ada remained outside the Union, and the flag of England 
still flew on the heights of Quebec when the treaty was 
made by which the humiliated mother country acknowl- 
edged her revolted colonies to be free and independent 
states. But that war materially affected the fortunes of 
Canada and incidentally the operation of the Quebec Act. 
Tens of thousands of loyalists crossed the line to keep 
their British citizenship. New Brunswick and Ontario 
came into existence. And one of the first and most ob- 
vious obligations of England to the sons who had sacri- 
ficed their all for her, was to give them the full rights 
of the citizenship which they had so greatly valued. 
Only Ontario, of the country newly settled by the refugees, 
was included in the Canada of that time, and as soon as 
possible the unnatural situation by which thousands of 
staunch settlers of British race were governed by French 
law and an autocratic government was remedied. In 
1 79 1 the Constitutional Act, as it is called, replaced the 
Quebec Act. Canada was divided by the line of the 
Ottawa River. The lower province was left its French 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 203 

law and French customs. But Upper Canada was made 
wholly English, and since in this English province a rep- 
resentative assembly could not in reason or justice be 
withheld, the government of Pitt thought it best to grant 
the same favor to Quebec. So part of the evil of the 
Act of 1774 was undone. West of the Ottawa Canada 
was to be English, and government by a power that left 
out of consideration the voice of the people was a thing 
of the past. 

It is an often-quoted remark that Britain's success with 
her colonies in the last hundred years has been in great 
measure due to the " lesson " taught her by the American 
Revolution. This is of course by no means wholly un- 
true. It was of immense importance that the destructive 
policy of George III should receive a death blow. But 
to suppose that the American Revolution taught the Eng- 
lish people the lesson of colonial self-government is a 
mistake that could only spring from our cheerful readi- 
ness to manufacture large and impressive generalizations 
without facts. The American Revolution did, no doubt, 
end the reign of the theory that colonies existed for the 
benefit of the mother country. But thoughtful English- 
men who might have admitted this in 1790 might have 
suggested and did suggest as a corollary that it was there- 
fore scarcely worth while for their country to trouble 



2o 4 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

about colonies at all. Much actual money and energy 
had been spent by Englishmen in the founding — not of 
all the colonies, doubtless, but of many of them. Infi- 
nitely more had been spent in their defense against France. 
The contribution of the mother island towards the con- 
quest of New France had greatly exceeded the grudg- 
ing appropriations of the colonies. And now, an Eng- 
lishman might say, even granting that North and George 
III were wrong, was it not a lamentable thing that twenty 
years after the fall of Quebec the colonies should rise 
in armed revolt over a grievance no whit worse than was 
suffered by some of the greatest of English cities? At 
any rate was it not a thing that should cool the enthusiasm 
of any Englishman who might wish to tax himself and his 
fellow countrymen to defend a colony overseas, — a col- 
ony that might to-morrow become an enemy. Was it not 
better to do things in the Greek way,— let colonies form 
spontaneously, and let them be independent from the 
beginning? t Questions most natural, surely, still asked 
sometimes by those who are called " Little Englanders," 
eloquently asked too by men like the late Goldwin Smith, 
survivals of the great Liberal school of English thinkers 
and statesmen, who by their very indifference to empire 
did so much to make Greater Britain possible. 

One other lesson was taught by the American Revolu- 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 205 

tion to observers of a less liberal temperament, viz., the 
danger of giving a colony too much control over its own 
affairs. And it is this lesson, not the other, which is most 
evident in British colonial policy for two generations 
after 1783. The French Revolution, with its hysteria 
and the whirlwind of war that followed it, came hard 
upon the Revolution in America, and the result was the 
reverse of an increase of warmth in the British attitude 
to democracy. England had developed during many cen- 
turies her own type of liberty, and it was as a matter of 
fact nearing the culmination to which Grey and Russell, 
Disraeli and Gladstone brought it during the nineteenth 
century. But it was a type that relied for its strength 
and permanence not on high-sounding phrases or declara- 
tions of the rights of man, but on the cautious, conserva- 
tive, progressive working out of specific points, the re- 
moval of one after another obstacle that stood in the way 
of free national development, the practical struggle to- 
wards a practical and fruitful freedom. " The Rights 
of Englishmen " meant a very real thing to many men 
who would have failed to make head or tail of Rousseau 
and would have spurned with contempt the " Rights of 
Man." Now this practical liberty of England, shocked 
by the wild utterances and the terrible excesses of the 
French Revolution, underwent a distinct reaction after 



206 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

1793. The progress of the island towards complete gov- 
ernment by the people was delayed thirty years. And 
this must partly explain the slowness of England in recog- 
nizing the inevitable and completing the Constitutional 
Act of 1 79 1 by the gift of responsible government. 

To sum up then, after the American Revolution there 
were two characteristic views of colonial policy in Eng- 
land, — one, that colonies were not worth while, that they 
should be treated simply with courtesy, and that their way 
should be pointed towards independence as far as might 
be consistent with the maintenance of good feeling; the 
other, that colonies might or might not be worth while, 
but that since they at any rate existed and since they could 
not be dropped without loss of prestige, it was at least 
advisable to guide them with a tight rein and see that 
they did not follow the example of Massachusetts and 
Virginia. These two divergent views alternately and in 
varying strength dominated the British attitude towards 
the colonies until 1840, if not for some time longer. 
Then gradually, hesitatingly and vaguely grew the idea 
which at last took shape, in the inspiring phrases — the 
" expansion of England " and " Greater Britain." 

At the risk of being tedious we must make clear the 
progress from the representative government granted in 
1 79 1 to the responsible government which became fact 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 207 

soon after 1840. An assembly which has a right to make 
laws and control taxation is doubtless bound ultimately 
to control the administration unless it is restrained by a 
written constitution or by a higher power. In both Up- 
per and Lower Canada after 1791 the English Crown 
appointed the governor, and the governor selected his 
advisers. The whole matter of the administration was 
thus removed from the competence of the Assembly. 
Given freedom of debate, power to make laws and levy 
taxes, an individualism as sturdy as that of seventeenth 
century England, and no control of the executive what- 
ever, and we have abundant material for friction. It 
came in full measure, intensified in Quebec by racial an- 
tagonism, but bitter increasingly even in the English prov- 
ince, where an able, hot-headed, uncompromising cham- 
pion of popular government, William Lyon Mackenzie, 
led the forces of reform. At Toronto, the capital of 
Upper Canada, a group of prominent men of aristocratic 
tendencies became so invariably the advisers and inform- 
ants of each new governor that they were not undeservedly 
considered a practical oligarchy, and were stigmatized by 
the Reformers as the " Family Compact." But invec- 
tives, resolutions of censure, fierce editorials, even threats 
to stop the granting of supplies, were helpless against the 
stubbornness of governors, the skill and watchfulness of 



208 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

the " Family Compact," and the indifference of the home 
government. Then at last the fierce temper of Mac- 
kenzie cast aside all restraint. With a handful of asso- 
ciates as reckless as himself he rose in armed rebellion. 
A French leader, Papineau, with even more reason, led a 
similar rising in Quebec. Only prompt action on the 
part of a group of able and clear-headed loyalists pre- 
vented Toronto from falling into the hands of the rebels, 
and bubble as it seems to one looking back, it was for a 
time a serious enough affair. 

Now, eighty years later, this rebellion of 1837 has 
importance simply because of its effect on the government 
at home and because it ended an impossible situation. 
Seldom has so complete a fiasco accomplished so much. 
But that it bore fruit at all was due less to Mackenzie 
than to the change in the temper and point of view of 
the English people. England was no longer the England 
of 1776 or even of 1791. The great reforming decade 
of the thirties was nearing its close. The reactionary 
effect of the French Revolutionary era had spent its force. 
Catholics and Protestant Dissenters alike had been re- 
lieved of their disabilities; Parliament had been re- 
formed; slavery had been abolished; industrial evils were 
being investigated and remedied; and in a few years 
Bright and Cobden were to begin their triumphant cru- 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 209 

sade against the Corn Laws. In the very year of the 
rebellion the great Queen ascended the throne whose 
name is associated both with the completion of British 
democracy and with the tightening of the bonds of em- 
pire. So it was at a propitious moment after all that the 
hot-headed reformer rushed to arms, proved his impo- 
tence, and turned away angry and disappointed to exile. 
For the rebellion, if it did nothing else, called attention 
imperatively to the fact that there was trouble. 

It was a crisis whose settlement determined the future 
of the Empire. Instead of sending to Canada more 
troops and indignant mandates regarding punishment and 
repression, the British government sent out one of its 
wisest members — the Earl of Durham — clothed with 
complete power to examine, conciliate, and report. He 
did so, and the resultant report is the modern classic of 
colonial government. We need not here discuss it in 
detail. The essential points of importance are the rec- 
ommendations for the union of the two provinces, and for 
the practical end of the separation between legislative and 
executive. Quebec, associated with her sister province 
on equal terms, could no longer protest against alien rule. 
And though it might take some years to fully adjust the 
machinery of responsible government, yet the Act of 
Union (1840) was barely formed and understood be- 



210 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

fore governors and representatives of the people had 
learned harmony, and Cabinet government in Canada 
went on thereafter as smoothly as in England. The fun- 
damental problem of colonial policy had at last been 
settled. A colony had been given complete autonomy. 

Simple as the matter seems to us now the Act of 1840 
ranks as one of the decisive landmarks of political his- 
tory. Those who accuse the mother country of slow- 
ness and blindness might just as reasonably pour contempt 
on Europe for not discovering America a century before 
Columbus, or rail at Franklin for failing to adapt elec- 
tricity to our modern uses in the telegraph and trolley- 
car. We self-satisfied moderns forget how easy it is to 
be wise after the event, how the problem was one of 
which no people had ever attained a satisfactory solution, 
and how little strange it is that it should be only after the 
groping and experimenting, the doubtful striving of many 
years that the making of a world-wide empire, loyal, free 
and healthy, should be achieved by the English race. 
We may blame this or that statesman for this or that mis- 
take. In no other way can we reap fruit from the experi- 
ments of the past. But at bottom the marvel is not that 
mistakes were made, but that while England was still 
weary after her gigantic war with France, while she was 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 211 

still adjusting herself to the changes of the Industrial Rev- 
olution, while she was anxiously mending the flaws in the 
delicate machinery of her own constitution, she should at 
last solve ideally the problem of colonial government. 

For as far as we can see now the solution is ideal. 
Those who prophesied that the gift of responsible gov- 
ernment to Canada — unavoidable and on the whole 
praiseworthy as it might be — would mean independence, 
have seen the tie of sentiment prove stronger than any 
device of law framed by Roman, Frank or Englishman. 
Canada, notwithstanding the overshadowing presence of 
the great Republic to the south, has steadily grown and 
expanded until she reaches in one line of dominion from 
Halifax and Quebec to Vancouver. As Ontario out- 
stripped Quebec, so that the French province became a 
hindrance to the restless growth of English Canada, a 
way was found of leaving Lower Canada her autonomy 
while still removing any possibility of deadlock. The 
British North America Act of 1867 united old Canada, 
i.e., Ontario and Quebec, with New Brunswick and Nova 
Scotia in a federal Dominion. Prince Edward Island 
entered Confederation in 1871, and in the same year the 
distant colony of British Columbia became a province of 
Canada. For the great west had been opened to coloni- 



212 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

zation, and the Canada of Frontenac and Montcalm was 
now only a part of a self-governing Dominion that 
stretched from ocean to ocean. 

In our narrative thus far we have concerned ourselves 
solely with the French and English colonies in the valley 
of the St. Lawrence and along the shores of the Great 
Lakes. But the Canada of to-day includes not only the 
provinces known by that name a century ago but the ter- 
ritories once known as Acadia and the Hudson's Bay 
Territory, all of British North America, indeed, except 
the island of Newfoundland. Instead of Acadia, Cana- 
dians speak now of the maritime provinces, — Nova Sco- 
tia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. And in 
the immense region once traversed by the fur-traders 
of the Great Company have arisen four thriving states, 
Manitoba, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Alberta. 
The maritime provinces, settled first by the French and 
ceded to England in 17 13 by the Treaty of Utrecht, have 
had an industrial and constitutional history very like that 
of Ontario. But western Canada had a different begin- 
ning and a different history up to almost our own day, 
just as the history of Iowa or of California is unlike that 
of Connecticut or Pennsylvania. Indeed the contrast be- 
tween east and west is greater in Canada than in the 
United States, for the pioneers of the prairie and moun- 



1 £ %tt fr 




E A N 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 213 

tain states were adventurers from the east, while the 
pioneers of the Canadian west were not Canadians, but 
the English and Scottish traders of the Hudson's Bay 
Company, once proprietors and rulers of the whole im- 
mense territory west of Lake Superior and Hudson's Bay. 

During the first half of the seventeenth century, while 
Champlain and his successors were penetrating the wilder- 
ness about the St. Lawrence valley and the Great Lakes, 
the extreme northern portion of the continent was being 
explored by English sailors in the search for a north- 
west passage. Hendrik Hudson, sent out by a group 
of London merchants, entered the great sea that bears 
his name in 16 10, and during the next forty years other 
navigators sailed along its shores from time to time in 
the vain search for an outlet to the west. Then Eng- 
lish exploration languished and the French from Canada 
entered the field, until gradually both peoples came to 
realize, as their knowledge of the facts became clearer, 
that while the mystery of the Northwest passage still 
remained hidden, yet in the meantime there was a vast 
and almost untouched mine of wealth in the western fur- 
trade. 

In 1670 the Hudson's Bay Company received its char- 
ter from King Charles II. It was given a monopoly of 
the fur trade in all the region drained by the waters flow- 



2i 4 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

ing into Hudson's Bay 1 with the right to make laws, ad- 
minister justice, carry on war, and exercise proprietor- 
ship and lordship in a land almost wholly unexplored, 
whose boundaries no white man had ever traced. That 
this should be contested by the French was inevitable, 
and the trading posts of Hudson's Bay changed hands 
frequently during the next forty years according to the 
varying strength and cunning of the combatants. But 
by the treaty of Utrecht in 17 13 the French yielded the 
territory to their rivals, and during the eighteenth cen- 
tury the stockholders of the Company drew rich dividends 
from the trade with the Indians, maintaining their posts 
at the mouth of the Churchill and along the shores of 
James Bay. Little effort was made during these years 
to penetrate very far inland, but there was at least one 
notable voyage made in 1770 that resulted in the descent 
and survey of the Coppermine River. 

There came a time, however, when the easy conserva- 
tism of the monopolists received a rude shock. Traders 
from Canada were finding it possible to secure rich mor- 
sels of the great western feast, in spite of the charter, and 
some of these in 1783 formed the North West Company 
to engage in exploration and trade west and southwest 

1 Called in the charter Rupert's Land, after Prince Rupert, promoter 
and first Governor of the Company. 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 215 

of Rupert's Land. A period of rivalry followed, some- 
times of bitter war, and in the battle for supremacy the 
servants of the two companies pushed their explorations 
farther and farther west. Peace was made and the 
North West Company was merged into the older cor- 
poration in 1 82 1, but the new spirit of enterprise awak- 
ened by forty years of competition continued to extend 
the Company's field of activity until the trading posts 
flying the H.B.C. flag dotted the wilderness up to the 
Arctic and across the Rockies, finally even the Pacific 
coast from Behring Sea to San Francisco. For Alexan- 
der Mackenzie's great voyage of 1789 from Lake Atha- 
basco to Great Bear Lake and thence down the Macken- 
zie River to its mouth was followed by the crossing of 
the mountains to the Pacific by Mackenzie himself 
(1793), the further voyages of Frazer and Thompson, 
the establishing of factories on the coast, a victorious 
trade war with the Pacific Fur Company of John Jacob 
Astor, and the expansion and strengthening of a commer- 
cial empire that covered three-fourths of the present area 
of Canada. 

The Company existed for trade, not for settlement. 
The world-wide myth regarding the barrenness and in- 
hospitable climate of the northwest was an invention of 
the traders, carefully nursed and diligently spread for the 



216 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

purpose of keeping colonists away. Settlers meant farms 
and cities, and farms and cities meant not only the end of 
monopoly but the disappearance of the fur-bearing ani- 
mals and the dwindling of dividends. Colonists and 
" free-traders " alike were consistently discouraged. But 
in spite of the Company's policy in this regard a colony 
was at length established. A wealthy and philanthropic 
nobleman, the Earl of Selkirk, after a visit to Canada, 
bought up a third of the stock of the Company and used 
his power as one of the proprietors to procure a grant of 
116,000 square miles on and near the shores of Lake 
Winnipeg, with the understanding that he should found 
a colony thereon. A prospectus was issued by the enter- 
prising Earl; a number of Scotch and Irish home-seekers 
were induced by liberal terms to emigrate; and the ship 
bearing these western pilgrim fathers reached York Fac- 
tory on Hudson's Bay in September, 181 1, after a voy- 
age of two months. The bitter hostility of the North 
West Company added to the inevitable difficulties in the 
founding of a settlement so far from civilization meant 
an unhappy and stormy infancy for the new colony — the 
Red River Settlement, as it was called. But finally a lit- 
tle community took root around Fort Garry, at the forks 
of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, — the nucleus of the 
present city of Winnipeg. 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 217 

The west was still a wilderness. Fort Garry was two 
thousand miles from Montreal, and transportation was 
a long and arduous business. The little colony was 
wholly dependent on the Company, and the movement 
towards emancipation and self-government was bound to 
be slow. But as the mid-year of the century was reached 
and passed and as the Red River Settlement increased its 
population to about five thousand, restlessness became 
more and more evident, and the imperious traders began 
dimly to see that their rule was nearing its end. More- 
over their rights began to be questioned by the govern- 
ment of Canada. Much of the trade of the west passed 
through Fort William on Lake Superior by way of the 
Lakes and the St. Lawrence to Montreal, and the name 
and power of the Company were familiar to every Cana- 
dian merchant. Already there were men who dreamed 
of the westward expansion of Canada, and who felt that 
the time was coming when settlers should supplant the fur- 
traders in at least part of the territory between Lake Su- 
perior and the Pacific. By 1850 the Company held not 
only the domain granted by their original charter, Ru- 
pert's Land, but the wide prairie lands of Manitoba and 
Saskatchewan, the forests and plains of the northwest 
explored by Mackenzie and his successors (Alberta), the 
mountainous region of British Columbia, and Vancouver 



218 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Island, all of these being held on limited lease from the 
Crown. Much of this territory Canada might claim as 
a legitimate field of expansion on the basis of the treaty 
of 1763, and the lapsing of the Company's control was 
only a matter of time. 

The landmarks of the change may be quickly noted, — 
a change in which half-breeds and factors, politicians and 
lawyers, settlers in the west and men of affairs in Mont- 
real and London all played their part. In 1859 British 
Columbia was removed from the jurisdiction of the Com- 
pany and made a Crown colony. In 1867 the maritime 
provinces were united with Ontario and Quebec in the 
Dominion of Canada by the British North America Act, 
a clause in the Act providing for the admission of Ru- 
pert's Land and the North West Territory into the Con- 
federation. In 1870 the whole of the Hudson's Bay 
Territory, about three million square miles in area, was 
transferred by purchase to the Dominion of Canada, and 
the Red River Settlement entered Confederation as the 
province of Manitoba. British Columbia was admitted 
in 1 87 1 on the understanding that east and west were to 
be united by railroad, and the Canadian Pacific Railway 
— finished in 1887 — was the result. Saskatchewan and 
Alberta followed in 1905. 

Each of the nine provinces is a self-governing state in 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 219 

regard to provincial affairs. Each sends representatives 
to the Dominion Parliament at Ottawa. Dominion and 
provinces alike are governed on the cabinet system 
adopted from the mother country. That is to say, while 
there is a Governor-General at Ottawa and a Lieutenant- 
Governor in each provincial capital representing the 
Crown, the actual administration is in the hands of a 
Premier and the cabinet chosen from the dominant party 
and responsible to the representative assembly, itself re- 
sponsible to the people. The government differs from 
that of the United States in that the executive is composed 
of ministers who are themselves members of Parliament, 
who must answer constant inquiries, meet constant at- 
tacks, and defend their measures in debate, who may be 
removed from office at any moment by a vote expressing 
want of confidence, who constitute, in other words, an 
executive committee of Parliament. According to the 
will of the electors the Prime Minister may hold his office 
for twenty days or twenty years; as in the Athens of 
Pericles, there is no fear of a dictatorship in a democracy 
in which the ruler may be deposed within the space of one 
election day or by a single vote in the House of Com- 
mons. And the country thus governed by its own people 
is to all intents and purposes independent, maintaining 
as links with the mother land only her Governor-General 



220 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

— appointed in London as the royal representative — 
and the right of appeal to the Imperial Privy Council as a 
court of last resort. 

Twentieth century Canada must face and solve three 
main problems. She must arrive at a safe working ad- 
justment between her French and English populations; 
she must decide whether her present informal relation to 
the Empire is adequate or whether some more definite 
and tangible system is preferable ; and she must continue, 
in common with all other nations, to work steadily to- 
ward a more perfect democracy, toward the social ideal 
represented by the western allies in the Great War, — 
the harmony of cooperation and freedom, social order on 
the one hand and " life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
ness " on the other. 

The solving of the first of these is a matter of time. 
The most evident obstacle lies in the language question. 
One can hardly over-rate the seriousness of the fact that 
a large proportion of the voting population of Quebec, 
nearly one quarter of the voting population of Canada, 
cannot read or speak English. The problems of the 
Empire, of Canada and of the world are presented to 
them solely through a tongue other than that of their 
fellow-citizens. This fact alone tends to isolate the 
French Canadians, to create a homogeneous mass exercis- 



THE DOMINION OF CANADA 221 

ing not only provincial autonomy but great power in the 
national councils of a country that must remain largely 
alien so long as the language barrier exists. This isola- 
tion would be less harmful, no doubt, if the spiritual kin- 
ship with France herself had not been broken. But New 
France is not France. She never experienced the fiery 
baptism of the Revolution. Her adjustment to the mod- 
ern world was not through the shattering and purging 
work of Rousseau, Mirabeau and Napoleon. She never 
rose to the ecstasy of the Feast of Pikes and the Declara- 
tion of the Rights of Man, nor did her priesthood ever 
face the ordeal of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. 
She has looked at the resurrection of modern France 
with cold and unsympathetic eyes, absorbed in the diffi- 
culty of clinging to her old institutions as far as might 
be and at the same time adjusting herself to membership 
in an alien empire. But the people of Quebec passion- 
ately assert their love for Canada ; most of their leaders 
are loyal to the empire; and the Bonne Entente move- 
ment of recent years has done much to remove friction 
and to promote amity. The difficulties are obvious, but 
time and tact are slowly bringing about a better under- 
standing. It was no insignificant fact that Sir Wilfrid 
Laurier, a French Canadian Catholic, should have been 
Premier of Canada from 1896 to 19 10, the idolized 



222 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

leader of a Liberal party that knew no bounds of race or 
creed- 

The second and third problems are less acute, enor- 
mously important as they are. One is a problem that 
touches all of the colonies as well as the mother country 
and will be progressively solved in conferences and in 
cautious experiment. The other is the problem not of 
Canada alone but of the civilized world. It will be 
solved by " education and agitation " as the slow-moving 
progress of free peoples brings more light and more cour- 
age. But in the meantime of two things Canada is sure. 
One is the conviction of her destiny; united, free, self-de- 
termining and alive, she looks forward to a future whose 
limits in achievement she does not presume to define but 
of whose glory she has no sort of doubt. The other is 
that this future is linked with that of the British Empire. 
She desires secession from the Empire no more than 
Massachusetts desires secession from the United States. 
The form of union, imperial federation or any other, is 
a detail, not insignificant but still not fundamental. She 
would leap to arms if her liberties were threatened. But 
her sons who have died at Paardeburg, at Ypres and at 
Vimy Ridge, died fighting for the Empire as untroubled 
and single-hearted in their patriotism as if they had 
fallen before an invader at Halifax or Vancouver. 



X 

THE SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES OF THE SOUTH 

The third quarter of the nineteenth century found nine 
self-governing British colonies south of the equator; in 
the island of Australia were New South Wales, Victoria, 
South Australia, Western Australia, and Queensland; 
across a narrow strait to the southeast was Tasmania; 
twelve hundred miles away were the islands composing 
New Zealand; and on the southern extremity of Africa 
there were Cape Colony and Natal. To discuss the 
growth and prospects of each of these would be quite 
impossible with the space at our disposal. We shall 
limit our effort to a study of the development of a pe- 
culiarly vigorous socialistic democracy in Australasia, 
more particularly in New Zealand, and to the territorial 
expansion of South Africa with its resultant problems. 
For both of these have had a direct reaction on the Em- 
pire and on the world. 

It must be remembered that time and again, the world 
over, the growth of really democratic self-government 
has been limited and conditioned by the menace of ex- 

223 



224 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

ternal dangers, the anxieties and burdens of severe inter- 
nal problems, the pressure of heavy national responsibili- 
ties. Every state in Europe has for ages looked across 
its frontiers at frowning fortresses and malignant bay- 
onets, and has had to subordinate every other considera- 
tion to the primary one of defense. Even in the new 
world of America it has been difficult at any time to ap- 
proach with an entirely serene mind questions directly 
bearing on the ideals expressed in the Declaration of 
Independence. And while it is true that in spite of these 
handicaps liberty and self-government have steadily 
spread over the world it is also true that the advance 
has been slow, halting, and incomplete. Few would as- 
sert that the problems of democracy have been solved 
even in Britain, France and the United States, completely 
as these countries are committed to the democratic ideal. 
And the reason is an excellent one, — they have not yet 
attained either internal harmony or external security, and 
they are preoccupied with a multitude of questions that 
must be answered. For after all public safety is more 
insistent than public liberty. 

Other things being equal, then, we might expect that 
where the preoccupation has been least anxious, the pres- 
sure least burdensome, the progress towards an ordered 
freedom, towards courageous experiments in government 



SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES 225 

by the people, should be most rapid and most marked. 
England, protected by her seas, Venice, by her lagoons, 
Switzerland, by her mountains, are all cases in point, but 
the most notable example in the modern world is that of 
the South Pacific colonies of Britain. Encircled by the 
inviolate sea, far from the rivalries and armaments of 
Europe, with no menacing neighbor and with no tempta- 
tion to aggression, with a homogeneous population of 
rugged and freedom-loving stock, Australia and New 
Zealand might well be expected to lead the world in 
popular government. They could try experiments from 
which America and Europe might reasonably shrink, 
knowing that temporary failure would mean no danger 
of anarchy, disintegration or foreign attack. 

Up to the year 1890 the progress of the Australasian 
colonies had been steady and full of promise, but not 
extraordinary or distinctive in character. By i860 all 
were self-governing except Western Australia. Remote 
from her sister provinces, poor in land fit for agriculture 
or pasture, her advance in population had been slow, and 
only in 1890 was she given complete autonomy. The dis- 
covery of gold in 1 85 1 had given New South Wales and 
Victoria a phenomenally rapid increase of population * 
and their mines and magnificent pasture lands had pro- 

1 The population of Victoria in 1850 was 76,162; in 1861, 541,800. 



226 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

vided the basis of a great export trade in minerals, wool 
and mutton. Agriculture was slower in development; 
indeed it has never been so relatively important as in Can- 
ada or South Africa. But mines, ranches and the urban 
industries gave employment to a vigorous people of al- 
most purely English-speaking stock. 

Until the last decade of the nineteenth century the 
Australian provinces remained content with their separate 
existence. Early in the nineties their rivalries and jeal- 
ousies began to give place to the realization that a larger 
national life was desirable, and the movement grew until 
in the last year of the century the Commonwealth of 
Australia came into being. A federal state of the same 
general pattern as Canada and the United States, the 
new nation has jealously preserved the tradition expressed 
in the slogan " White Australia " by a rigid restriction 
of immigration and by refusal to permit the entrance of 
Asiatic or colored labor; she has deliberately adopted a 
democratic ideal; and yet she has consciously and warmly 
retained her place in the confederacy of British states, 
and her geographical isolation has been tempered by a 
keen and eager imperial patriotism. Few more signifi- 
cant events marked the latter half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury than the voluntary sending of a contingent from New 
South Wales to fight in Egypt after the death of Gordon. 



SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES 227 

And its significance was confirmed when Australians and 
Canadians took part in the South African war of 1899- 
1902. No one indeed could yet have foreseen that Aus- 
tralia and Canada between them would in a few years 
send forces overseas outnumbering the entire British reg- 
ular army. But the contingents of 1885 and 1900 were 
in truth the vanguard of the hosts of 19 14-18. 

Americans and Europeans, looking casually at the map 
of the world, are apt to group Australia and New Zealand 
together as if they lay side by side, neighbors as well as 
kindred, with practically the same problems and the same 
outlook. But even by a fast liner the ports of New 
Zealand are four days' sail from Sydney and Melbourne. 
Moreover the rugged mountains, the coasts indented with 
deep bays, the innumerable brooks and lakes of the 
smaller islands are utterly unlike the massive, rolling, 
comparatively waterless Terra Australis, and it is more 
than mere remoteness that has caused New Zealand to 
refuse entrance into the Australian Commonwealth. 
Similar in population, in distance from the mother coun- 
try, in insular security, and in warmth of attachment to 
the Empire, the smaller colony has preferred to solve her 
problems and carve out her destiny without any closer 
partnership than that symbolized by a common flag. 

New Zealand consists of a group of islands with an 



228 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

area of 104,470 square miles and a population of about 
1,099,295 whites and 50,000 Maories. We have told in 
a former chapter of the landing of Captain Cook and 
the hoisting of the British flag at Mercury Bay. But 
the act remained a dead letter for three generations. 
Only when little settlements had actually gathered on the 
coast of North Island, and when traders and settlers 
alike had found frequent danger and embarrassment in 
the presence of warlike cannibals, did it seem desirable 
for England to take steps for the establishment of a 
government. The Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 made a 
definite arrangement with the chiefs of North Island by 
which the natives retained their proprietary rights over 
the land while the sovereignty passed to Queen Victoria. 
A capital was founded at Auckland. The remaining 
islands were soon annexed, — chiefly to prevent a French 
annexation of South Island which was forestalled by about 
three hours - — and there remained only the problems of 
adjustment, assimilation, the slow working out of peace- 
ful relations with the Maories, and the development of a 
national life and policy. 

Self-government, the union of the various settlements 
(1876), railroads, and all the equipment of English- 
speaking civilization came quickly. But it was not until 
after 1800 that New Zealand set forth on the national 



SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES 229 

policy that made her one of the most interesting spots 
on the globe to students of society and government. Yet 
she had already paved the way. Early in her career 
she had faced the problem presented by the acquisition 
of immense areas of territory by fair or unfair purchase 
from the natives. 1 In i860 the Province of Canterbury 
had inaugurated the policy of state built and state con- 
trolled railroads — a policy continued by the Union gov- 
ernment after 1876 and applied also in Australia; in 1865 
the government applied the same system to the telegraph 
lines and in 1884 to the telephone; in 1869 a State Life 
Insurance Office was created and in 1872 a Public Trust 
Office, providing a Public Trust for the administration of 
estates; in 1877 an Education Act was passed providing 
for universal, free, and compulsory education. These un- 
doubtedly foreshadowed a widening of the idea of govern- 
ment function, an extension of public ownership, public 
interest in industries affecting the common weal which 
was ultimately to approach State Socialism. But it was 
in the nineties that the government began to aim con- 
sciously and systematically at a goal that startled the 
whole conservative world. 

In 1890 the prosperity of Australia was shaken to its 

1 "It is estimated that in 1840 the 'land-sharks' had appropriated or 
pretended to have legally acquired twenty million acres, i.e., about a third 
of New Zealand." Siegfried, "Democracy in New Zealand," c. XIV. 



230 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

foundations by a strike of the sheep shearers. It was 
quite largely confined to Queensland, but it led in the fol- 
lowing year to an industrial war that spread through the 
whole of the island and extended to New Zealand. The 
strikers were defeated; the paralysis of industry that they 
had created brought disaster and want far beyond the 
expectation of the Unions; and the economic shock of the 
strike was followed by a financial crisis of the first magni- 
tude extending through 1892-93. The suffering and 
anxiety of these years led to two things,- — the resolve of 
the laborers, since the weapon of the strike had failed 
them, to find redress in the more powerful weapon of the 
ballot, and the widespread feeling throughout both Aus- 
tralia and New Zealand that State regulation might pre- 
vent the recurrence of disaster and provide a sound basis 
for public health. 

The result has been frequently described by the use 
of that loosely understood word — " socialism." If we 
mean by socialism the Utopian communism of Owen and 
Fourier, or if we mean by it the conscious, consistent 
adoption of the theories of Karl Marx, then the word is 
inapplicable to either Australia or New Zealand. But 
current usage hardly justifies us in restricting the word 
to any one system. The central aim of modern socialism 
is, no doubt, the bridging of the gulf between labor on 



SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES 231 

the one hand and the instruments of production — land 
and capital — on the other, the relief of the pressure on 
the vast mass of the population from the concentration 
of vast economic power in a comparatively few hands, 
the hands of the great land-owners and capitalists. From 
the point of view of the thorough-going socialist this aim 
can be realized only by the nationalization of land and 
capital, so that the workers may themselves be the own- 
ers, through the state, of the things without which their 
labor is helpless. But the thorough-going socialists are 
a small minority. In the English-speaking world the 
radicals who have supported what are termed socialistic 
measures are simply feeling their way not to a golden age 
but to the removal of disabilities and evils that freedom, 
ordinary political democracy of the laissez-faire 1 type 
will not cure. Freedom in the jungle means the rule of 
the tiger. Freedom in a democratic society, say the 
radicals, means the rule of the land-speculator and the 
millionaire, the predatory citizens who possess cunning, 

1 Laissez-faire is an expression adopted from the French Physiocrats of 
the later eighteenth century. "Laissez-faire, laissez-aller," i.e., freedom 
of action and free trade, was the motto of those who protested against 
the artificial regulation of industry and commerce by the state and asserted 
the need of absolute economic liberty. This was expanded into the widely 
accepted theory — natural in the eager democratic development of the 
nineteenth century — that the state's function was solely a police function, 
the maintenance of order. All else should be left to free individual enter- 
prise. Laissez-faire, then, simply means individual freedom as against 
government control. 



2 3 2 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

patience, cold hearts and acquisitive brains, and who use 
their peculiar qualities to become lords of the means of 
production. Not by sword and fire, not by castles and 
men-at-arms, not by tooth and claws, but by sheer char- 
acter and intellectual ability directed to the attainment of 
economic power, the capitalists and land-owners have re- 
duced the multitude of wage-earners to a position of de- 
pendence. To many then the old principle of complete 
economic liberty, added to inviolable private ownership 
of capital and land, has brought disaster. . And to rem- 
edy this, to give independence and prosperity to the work- 
ers, there has been a steady and world-wide movement 
towards the increased economic power of the state, the 
regulation of capitalism. 

This, rather than a doctrinaire socialism, has been the 
aim of the Liberal and Labor parties of Australasia. 
And the acts that have given it expression — limiting our 
survey to New Zealand — may be briefly summarized. 
It is recognized that the important sheep-herding indus- 
try needs large areas of land, but no one may legally 
possess more than 640 acres of first-class land, 2,000 acres 
of second class, or 5,000 of third class. The huge estates 
of thirty years ago have been broken up by the high taxa- 
tion of undeveloped land or by forced sale, the govern- 
ment taking it over and then selling or leasing it at a fair 



SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES 233 

valuation. Capitalism has been dealt with in a less high- 
handed way but with no less disregard for the old laissez- 
faire principles. The Factories Act is concerned with 
the health and safety of employees, with the evil of sweat- 
ing, with child labor, and with hours of work. It pro- 
vides for careful inspection; its regulations are minute 
and searching; and it is rigidly enforced. In 1894 an 
act was passed for compulsory arbitration of industrial 
disputes, the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. 
In 1899 a threatened combination of the coal and ship- 
ping interests led the government to undertake the state 
operation of coal mines. The state owns the patent for 
the cyanide process in the reduction of gold ore. There 
are state oyster beds and fish hatcheries. The state does 
business in Fire, Life and Accident Insurance. And there 
are Advance to Settlers and Advance to Workers Acts 
which have enabled the state to lend millions of pounds 
to those who needed it, in addition to a Workers Dwell- 
ings Act by which the state builds houses to be rented at 
five per cent, of the cost plus insurance. 

These cases are fairly typical examples of the policy 
that has been followed with varying consistency for nearly 
thirty years. Yet it is too early to pronounce with any 
certainty as to the result. Some of the experiments made 
have been considered sufficiently successful to justify the 



234 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

mother country herself in the series of so-called social- 
istic acts that we associate with the name of Lloyd George. 
Compulsory arbitration has been hardly the unqualified 
success that many of its supporters hoped for. New 
Zealand is no longer the " country without strikes " of 
which Mr. Henry D. Lloyd wrote a few years ago, and 
the series of strikes that began in Auckland in 1906, in 
Wellington in 1907, in the coal mines of the west coast 
in 1908, have reopened the whole question. Yet no one 
doubts the value of the experiment, and it seems unques- 
tionable that if compulsory arbitration did not altogether 
abolish strikes it at least diminished their recurrence. 

The obvious danger of the policy is expressed in the 
word " paternalism." The state is relied on in all 
emergencies. State action is the remedy for all evils. 
Enthusiasts of all kinds have unceasingly urged the gov- 
ernment to take over all manner of industries, — ship- 
ping, liquor, tobacco, baking, and what not. But if New 
Zealanders and Australians have been radical, willing to 
make experiments, light-heartedly neglectful of the horri- 
fied warnings of conservatives at home and abroad, yet 
they are not revolutionary and they are not academic. 
One may, perhaps, call their policy socialistic, for they 
have honestly tried to make the means of production 
accessible to the workers and to prevent tyranny on the 



SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES 235 

part of landowners and capitalists. But in spite of the 
hopes and labors of the followers of Henry George, Ed- 
ward Bellamy, and Karl Marx, single tax and orthodox 
socialism have never been applied in the South Pacific, 
nor is there any likelihood of the immediate triumph of 
any single panacea for social ills. The Australasians 
have the English merit or fault of being interested in a 
practical, concrete reform but blind to the magic of a 
vision. New Zealand operates coal mines, — but the 
state-owned mines produce only one eighth of the total 
output of coal. New Zealand runs an insurance busi- 
ness,—- but only in competition with a dozen or more pri- 
vate companies. Large estates are forbidden, but small 
landholders are encouraged. Nationalization of land or 
capital is nowhere visible. 

Undoubtedly the general effect of a study of the prog- 
ress of New Zealand and Australia is inspiriting. Free 
states, unhampered by foreign jealousy or by internal mal- 
ady, manfully doing their utmost to find their way to a 
social justice and happiness lacking in the older lands, 
making blunders and paying for them, keeping even amid 
periods of depression and puzzlement a clear and opti- 
mistic outlook, they have developed into powerful and 
prosperous nations, intelligent and intensely alive, whom 
their brethren of other climes regard with a pride not 



236 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

untinged with a certain excitement and expectancy. Se- 
renely following their faith in the voice of the people, 
leading the way in giving votes to women and so making 
their democracy flawless and consistent, they look un- 
afraid on the future. And from their secure eyrie in the 
south seas they send armies to fight for the empire in 
Europe as if to show that their isolation is only geograph- 
ical, not spiritual, — that they are militant members of 
the British brotherhood. 

We must now turn to a different stage and a different 
drama. We have already seen something of the prob- 
lems of South Africa, of the difficulties that beset the 
white settlers of the Cape Colony in the latter half of 
the nineteenth century. In 1872, when responsible gov- 
ernment was granted, the colony ruled about 200,000 
square miles of territory, inhabited by over 200,000 
whites and about one million blacks. Beyond the fron- 
tier (the Orange River) to the north lay an almost 
illimitable country, terrible and yet tempting, peopled by 
savages and wild beasts, a country of which little was 
known beyond the reports of a few daring traders, sports- 
men and missionaries. And the whites themselves were 
divided. The lonely, silent, passionately conservative 
burghers of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State had 



SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES 237 

little love for their restless, aggressive neighbors of the 
Cape, and they looked on sullenly and anxiously as the 
tide of British settlement and trade crept farther and 
farther inland. Boers, savages, and the magnetism of 
the wilderness gave abundant material for tragedy. 

The seventies saw the discovery of diamonds in Gri- 
qualand (Kimberley), the annexation of the Transvaal, 
and the Zulu war. The eighties saw a Boer war of in- 
dependence, the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand, 
and the founding of the Chartered Company of South 
Africa. The last decade of the nineteenth century saw 
the South African Republic standing firmly amid a swirl- 
ing tide of diamond and gold seekers, traders and set- 
tlers, with the Chartered Company organized for vast 
expansion to the north and little inclined to stand on cere- 
mony in their relations with the Dutch farmers. Johan- 
nesburg sprang into existence with a mining population 
none too easy to control under the best conditions, cer- 
tainly unlikely to endure without complaint the rigid and 
hostile control of an alien government. The Boers had 
left the Cape in 1836, Natal in 1843, m or der to escape 
from a British rule that ignored their customs and their 
prejudices. They had found a refuge in the distant wil- 
derness, and there they hoped to dwell in peace, perhaps 
even to build up an Arcadian Boer empire of a sort. 



238 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

But the world had caught up to them and was engulfing 
them. 

It is one of the few cases in which the question of right 
and wrong is almost academic. The farmer who yearns 
for peace, who shuns the noise and passions of the world, 
and who finds that a railroad demands the site of his 
barns for its roadbed, may awaken our sympathy; but 
no glacier or tidal wave is more pitiless in its progress 
than the human force that we call civilization. The lit- 
tle republic might have made good its claim to independ- 
ence if it had not been for the gold of the Rand and per- 
haps the ambitions of Paul Kruger. But the traditional 
Dutch attitude of contempt and hostility to the natives, 1 
the stubborn refusal to submit to a working adjustment 
with both Company and miners, the effort to ex-tend the 
Boer rule over an area that would have blocked British 
expansion to the north, made the Transvaal a center of 
friction and unrest, a source of trouble that no power 
could heal simply because miner, trader and Boer were 
equally unwilling to consider compromise or conciliation. 
As in the duel between English and French in America, 
two irreconcilable forces were in conflict, and when war 
came there could be no uncertainty as to the result. Both 

1 See above, pp. 182-6, for Livingstone's experience with Boers and 
blacks. 



SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES 239 

sides had a case. But the Boers, quite apart from Kru- 
ger's dream of empire, were contending for a principle 
which the world will never suffer: the right to isolation, 
the refusal of adjustment. The independence of the 
Transvaal under the old regime was as impossible as a 
Mohawk village in Harlem, a feudal barony on Staten 
Island, a Calvinistic theocracy in Pittsburgh. 

War came in October, 1899. It was more serious than 
any one had anticipated, and the Boers, well equipped 
and prepared by their veteran President, fought with tra- 
ditional Dutch obstinacy and skill. Their deadly marks- 
manship, their wonderful mobility, their knowledge of the 
country, their aptitude for an open warfare in which the 
fighting ability of men to whom battle and the hunt were 
familiar parts of the day's work was joined to the fa- 
naticism and discipline of Cromwell's Ironsides, enabled 
them to foil attack after attack while they laid siege to 
Ladysmith and Kimberley. Britain had to send to South 
Africa an army greater than that which had driven Na- 
poleon's veterans from Spain a century before, and place 
at its head her ablest military chiefs, Kitchener, the victor 
of Omdurman, and Roberts of Candahar. But at least 
the vacillation and surrender of twenty years before was 
not repeated. In spite of the Boer victories in the early 



2 4 o IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

months of the war Pretoria was occupied in the summer of 
1900, and after two years more of guerilla fighting the 
last commando laid down its arms in May, 1902. 

The treaty of peace contained a promise of autonomy, 
and in 1906 the Transvaal was proclaimed a self-govern- 
ing colony. In 19 10 the colonies of the Cape of Good 
Hope, Natal, Transvaal and the Orange River were 
united in the Union of South Africa. In the Parliament 
of the new Commonwealth Britons and Boers sat side 
by side, and Louis Botha, a Boer general, was Prime 
Minister. The seat of government was placed at Pre- 
toria, of the legislature at Cape Town. Both Dutch and 
English were recognized in the Act of Union as official 
languages, and the common law adopted was the Roman- 
Dutch Law, the uncodified law of Holland as it was when 
the Cape was occupied by British forces in 1806. It was 
the principle of the Quebec Act and the Constitutional 
Act of 1 79 1 1 repeated with a clear vision, with truer ap- 
preciation of the issues involved. Nothing could have 
more nobly illustrated the progress in political thought, 
in English conceptions of liberty, and in English magna- 
nimity since the days of George III and Lord North. 

Long before the Boer war the authorities in England 
and at the Cape had begun, slowly and reluctantly, to 

1 See above, pp. 198-202. 



SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES 241 

follow the lead given by Livingstone and to turn their 
faces northward. The new " forward policy " and its 
successful realization were due to two things, — the an- 
nexation by Germany of a great territory lying between 
the Orange River and the Portuguese colony of Angola, 
and the genius of Cecil Rhodes. 

Cecil Rhodes landed in Cape Town in 1870, an in- 
valid in search of health. He soon threw off his physical 
weakness, became interested in the diamond mines just 
opened at Kimberley, and from 1873 t0 x 88i spent part 
of each year at Oxford and part at Kimberley. In May, 
1 88 1, he took his Master's degree at a time when he 
was already a member of the Cape Assembly and was 
well started' on the road to leadership both in the dia- 
mond world and in politics. Wealth was a necessary 
means to the end he had in view, and in the eighties he 
became a millionaire, his resources being put on a firm 
footing by the amalgamation of the various diamond in- 
terests of Kimberley in the De Beers Consolidated Mines, 
Ltd. Lie was now ready to turn his brains and energy 
to a tremendous project that only awaited a leader, the 
creation of a British Central Africa. For successful as 
he had been in amassing wealth he was preeminently a 
statesman rather than a financier. 

All that we have said in former chapters regarding the 



242 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

unconsciousness of the empire-builders of Britain may be 
put aside when we consider Cecil Rhodes. He was the 
exception to the rule, one of the few Englishmen who 
have seen visions. Perhaps in the seventies, certainly 
early in the eighties, when the statesmanship of Britain, 
after woeful blunders in the treatment of the Boers, was 
anxious only to acquire no further responsibilities in South 
Africa, when both the mother country and the Cape 
seemed resolved to annex no more territory, Rhodes was 
surveying the situation from quite another angle. Paul 
Kruger, scorning the English ever since the Boer victory 
at Majuba Hill (1881), scorning them still more since 
Gladstone — with the best motives in the world — had 
refused to retrieve British prestige and had conceded in- 
dependence to the South African Republic, was dreaming 
of a vast extension of the Boer power. Wise as he was, 
he forgot that empire and isolation are incompatible, that 
in seeking the one he was risking the other in a perilous 
venture; or perhaps he did not forget this, but believed 
that the British expansion north could be permanently 
checked at the Orange River, and that an Afrikander 
dominion over the interior could be achieved without 
contact with rivals who could dispute or share it. At 
any rate Boer settlements spread east and north, followed 
by proclamations of annexation, and a gateway to the 



SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES 243 

sea was planned through the acquisition of Delagoa Bay. 
As the French in America sought to hem in the English 
by their barrier fortresses from Quebec to Fort Duquesne, 
so the old President hoped to limit his rivals to the Cape 
Colony and Natal. 

Rhodes was one of the few who saw the danger. And 
his efforts to meet it were unexpectedly aided by the 
colonial ambitions of Germany. In 1883 tne German 
flag was hoisted at Angra Pequena, and in 1884 the strip 
of coast between the Orange River and the Portuguese 
territory of Angola was declared a German colony under 
the name of German South West Africa. It was the 
signal for a general scramble, in which the German Em- 
pire secured Togoland and the Cameroons on the west 
coast and the great block of land between Zanzibar and 
Lake Tanganyika known as German East Africa. At 
once enthusiastic Pan-Germans began to plan for the con- 
struction of a great German African Empire by arrange- 
ment with the Boers, by annexation of the still unclaimed 
hinterland, by all available means that might connect the 
possessions on the west coast with Zanzibar. The Brit- 
ish government awoke to the fact that the leisurely method 
of considering to-day, not to-morrow, of meeting prob- 
lems only when they became too pressing to be ignored, 
had its defects. Rhodes' earnest warnings that Bechuana- 



244 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

land, the territory between German South West Africa 
and the South African Republic was the " neck of the 
bottle " and that at any moment it might be stopped by 
an agreement between Boers and Germans, were at last 
heeded. 

Action was taken before the end of 1884. Bechuana- 
land was declared a Crown Colony. Treaties were made 
with the Matabele chieftain, Lobengula, and with other 
tribes of the north providing that no territory should be 
ceded to other powers without British consent. On the 
eastern side Tongaland was made safe by a similar treaty. 
And finally in 1889 was organized the Chartered Com- 
pany of which Cecil Rhodes was the founder and the 
driving force. It was simply a new application of an 
old principle. As the East India Company had con- 
quered India and the Hudson's Bay Company had been 
the pioneer of empire in western Canada, both moved by 
commercial, not political aims, so the South African Com- 
pany proposed to develop the country of the Zambesi and 
beyond. 

The Company was not, of course, ostensibly a sover- 
eign power. Before seeking a charter Rhodes had se- 
cured from Lobengula an exclusive concession of mining 
and trading rights, and it was simply to obtain official 
British sanction and a formal status that the Company 



SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES 245 

was organized and chartered. But by the charter, per- 
mission was given " to acquire by concession, agreement, 
grant or treaty all or any rights, interests, authorities, 
jurisdictions, and powers of any kind or nature whatever, 
including powers necessary for the purposes of govern- 
ment, and the preservation of public order, or the pro- 
tection of territories, lands or property." So wide and 
inclusive an authority inevitably recalled the great Com- 
panies that had extended British rule to Delhi and Van- 
couver, and every thinking man who read the document 
of incorporation must have realized its vast potentialities. 
Trade no doubt follows the flag, but it is often equally 
true that the flag follows trade. 

But few could know then that in one respect this was un- 
like all the trading companies of the past. The British 
South Africa Company was practically Cecil Rhodes, and 
Rhodes was already wealthy far beyond his own needs, in- 
terested in trade only in so far as it meant the expansion 
of the empire, anxious not to make more money but to 
spend all his millions, if need be, in the realization of a 
dream. The East India Company had sought trade and 
resultant dividends; it had conquered reluctantly, under 
protest. The South Africa Company was willing enough 
to undertake the commercial and mineral development of 
" the region of South Africa lying immediately to the 



246 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

north of British Bechuanaland, and to the west of the 
Portuguese dominions." But this was not its sole or 
main object. The aim of Rhodes was to extend British 
rule from the Cape Colony to Lake Tanganyika, and to 
see South Africa organized in one great British confed- 
eracy. It was only incidentally that he was a financier. 
Primarily he was an empire-builder. 

The province of Rhodesia is his monument. He did 
not live to see the Cape to Cairo Railroad completed, nor 
did he know that in the years to come his Boer antagonists 
would themselves aid in the realization of his life ambi- 
tion, that Botha would conquer Germain South West 
Africa and Smuts German East Africa as British generals. 
He did not live even to see the Cape, the Transvaal, the 
Orange Free State and Natal join in the Union of South 
Africa. But he did see most of the obstacles removed. 
And he had made a reality that which David Livingstone 
had hoped and prayed for two generations before; for be- 
fore he died a British railroad bridged the thousand miles 
from Cape Town to Pretoria and was creeping on far be- 
yond the Zambesi towards Lake Nyassa; the telegraph 
wire threaded the wilderness in which the great missionary 
had labored and died; the road which had been made in 
loneliness and suffering was opened forever, for good or 
evil; and the slave trade was blotted out. 



SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES 247 

As to whether Rhodes was right in thus deliberately 
plann.ng and carrying through the acquisition of Matabe- 
leland, Mashonaland, and the rest of the region called 
by his name, each man must judge according to his knowl- 
edge and temperament. It differs from the myriads of 
similar cases chiefly in its definiteness of purpose, its thor- 
oughness of accomplishment, and — it is fair to add — in 
its effort to deal honestly by the natives. The convinced 
pacifist will sweep all excuses aside and condemn the an- 
nexation of Rhodesia as the deliberate appropriation by 
whites of that which belonged to the blacks. Rhodes 
would have denied that Matabeleland belonged in any 
such absolute way to the Matabele or to any other people. 
He was a believer in the survival of the fittest, and he was 
a fervent worshiper of British rule and all that it im- 
plied. And whether he was right or wrong, it is due 
primarily to him that the little colony which he found 
when he landed at the Cape in !8 7 o is now only the tip of 
a British South Africa that covers an area equal to one- 
third of the United States. 



XI 

THE INDIAN EMPIRE 

We have seen how Give's defense of Arcot and his 
victory at Plassey marked an era in the history of the 
British in India. Before 175 1 the Ea^st India Company 
and its servants were concerned solely with trade. After 
that year, certainly after 1757, the annals of Calcutta and 
Madras are full of politics and war. There was, in- 
deed, a period of transition. Not at once did the Direc- 
tors in England or the Council at Calcutta see that the 
acts of Clive, right or wrong, had committed his succes- 
sors to an irrevocable policy. Warren Hastings, Gover- 
nor-General of the Company's possessions in India from 
1772 to 1786, tried with all the resources of genius to 
avoid further conquest by diplomacy and by endeavoring 
to maintain Oudh as a buffer state. But the policy 
forced on him by the Directors at home only meant weari- 
some and sometimes humiliating bargaining with the 
Nawab of Oudh and with rapacious natives who were 
themselves the heirs of a thousand years of political 
force and fraud. As organizer and ruler Hastings car- 

248 







^■virrn 



THE INDIAN EMPIRE 249 

ried on Clive's work and laid a firm foundation for the 
British possessions in India : as diplomatist he succeeded 
only in postponing the inevitable and in exciting enmities 
that bore bitter fruit later on in his impeachment by Par- 
liament. The charges thundered against him by Burke 
and repeated in more temperate language by Macaulay 
have long been disproved. But his record shows clearly 
that there were really only two solutions to the dilemma, 
— acceptance of the policy of conquest and annexation, or 
withdrawal from India. 

Hastings' two successors, Cornwallis and Wellesley, 
with the lessons of his administration before them, def- 
initely appealed to the sword, and their policy was con- 
tinued perforce until India was conquered. One modi- 
fied form of the buffer state idea was adopted, indeed, and 
has survived to the present day. In certain cases a con- 
quered or dependent province was allowed to continue 
its administrative functions, subject to the advice on all 
external affairs of a British Resident. 1 It was a species 
of modern feudalism, the vassal prince being subject to 
the suzerain only in military and foreign matters. But 
such suzerainty was very real and uncompromising, and 
the conquest of Mysore (1799) and of the Mahrattas 

1 There are now 700 of these native states, with a total population of 
69,000,000. 



250 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

( 1 800-1 8 1 8) left the Company supreme in India south 
of the Sutlej. By 1850 Bengal, Orissa and Bihar had 
been definitely annexed; Oudh, like Hyderabad, was gov- 
erned by a subject prince; the chieftains of Rajputana and 
Central India were vassals; the Emperor at Delhi was 
a puppet whose strings were pulled by a British Resi- 
dent. North of the Sutlej the valiant Sikhs of the Pun- 
jab remained independent until almost the middle of the 
century. Their conquest in 1848-9 carried British rule 
to the foot of the Himalayas. 

Up to 1828 there was little sign of any effort on the 
part of the conquerors to consider the good of the con- 
quered. When the British authorities sought to avoid 
war or to evade conquest, as they frequently did, it was 
apparently not for ethical reasons but because they saw 
ahead of them a thorny and troublesome road, full of the 
possibilities of disaster and promising but an uncertain 
and precarious reward. A province once conquered was 
governed as justly as possible, no doubt, but with little 
effort to understand or meet the needs of the unregarded 
masses of the population. The people at home might 
alternately weep over Burke's recitals of the sins of Hast- 
ings or glory in the capture of Seringapatam or the occu- 
pation of Delhi. But tears and cheers alike were as 
meaningless as the emotions of the theater. Comfortable 



THE INDIAN EMPIRE 251 

dwellers in their orderly island, they had little conception 
of the whirlpools and tempests, the rocks and the quick- 
sands, the temptations and the deceptions of Indian poli- 
tics, of the baleful shadows and phantoms that obscured 
the line between true and false, right and wrong, of the 
intrigues that drove good men into doubtful courses and 
patient men to fits of passion. Even in England herself 
the political ideals of the early nineteenth century were 
none too statesmanlike, the ethical standards none too 
high. Government was a very practical, hand-to-mouth 
affair. And the governors of India were too busy in the 
meeting of difficult problems, the untying of impossible 
tangles, either to speculate overmuch on gorgeous visions 
of empire or to concern themselves with the patient 
toilers who had for ages beyond the memory of man paid 
the expenses of the armies that swept past or over their 
hovels. 

But in the twenties of the nineteenth century there be- 
gan to appear in England the signs of a slow but won- 
derful revolution. Age-long abuses were one by one 
faced and at least partly removed, — the harsh criminal 
laws, the evils of the factory system, the persecuting acts 
against Catholics and Dissenters, and slavery. As the 
new mechanical inventions were changing the face of 
England, so some subtle spirit seemed to be working a 



252 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

change in the minds and hearts of Englishmen. Words- 
worth and Coleridge, Keats and Shelley were the prophets 
of the change, Wesley, Wilberforce, Howard and Liv- 
ingstone its pioneers. It was not a matter of a moment, 
a year, or a decade. But as the century went on the hard 
materialism, the narrow and intolerant outlook of its 
earlier years gradually gave place to a more open mind, 
a warmer altruism, a higher and broader standard of 
ethics. One effect on British dominions overseas we have 
already seen in the concession of autonomy to Canada. 
And another was shown when Lord William Bentinck was 
appointed Governor-General of India in 1828. 

The work of Bentinck was not only of value in itself. 
It established a standard and inaugurated a policy. He 
issued the decree which made suttee, the burning of wid- 
ows, punishable as murder throughout British India. He 
suppressed the Thugs, a semi-religious brotherhood of 
murderers, one of the deadly plagues of the older India. 
He abolished flogging in the native army. He reformed 
the administration of justice, appointed native judges to 
civil courts and native officials to the higher as well as 
the lower ranks of the government service. He restored 
the native languages in the courts of law. He founded a 
medical college for natives at Calcutta and aided in the 
establishment of state-aided schools. The survey and re- 



THE INDIAN EMPIRE 253 

assessment of great areas of land was carried through 
with a new regard to the native farmers, and a new stand- 
ard of justice as distinct from policy was observed in 
dealing with the princes. In all this one may see only a 
beginning, indeed; much remained to be done; but the new 
era of progress and humanity which was opening in Eng- 
land was surely repAected in her great dependency. Be- 
fore Bentinck one follows the history of India as one fol- 
lows an absorbing game of chess. Then gradually, be- 
fore our eyes, the pawns become men and women, and 
even king and queen become human, their moves having 
a meaning beyond the removal of opponents and the 
mating of a rival. 

The tradition established by Bentinck was maintained 
and extended most brilliantly, perhaps, by three men, — 
Dalhousie, Henry Lawrence and John Lawrence. It is 
one of the curious ironies of history that the Marquis of 
Dalhousie, able, honest, iron-willed, perhaps the most 
gifted proconsul that had governed India since Clive, 
should be blamed by many for the terrible disaster of the 
Mutiny of 1857. It is possible, no doubt, that the driv- 
ing energy which made possible irrigation works that 
vastly increased the fertility of Bengal and the Punjab 
irritated the conservatism and indolence of the natives. 
It is possible too that his uncompromising enforcement of 



254 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

law, his efforts to check crime and lawlessness in the sub- 
ject kingdom of Oudh, and his final annexation of Oudh in 
1856, reasonable and right as these and similar meas- 
ures seemed to a British mind, provoked and angered 
those whose activities were thus checked. The virtues of 
energy, righteousness and clear-sightedness were perhaps 
not sufficiently tempered by tact and sympathy. And one 
may admit this the more readily when the work of the 
Lawrences in the Punjab is considered. For there ability 
equal to that of Dalhousie was joined to a tact and under- 
standing that made the Sikhs, conquered in 1849, loy<d ad- 
herents of their conquerors in 1857. 

Altogether one may prefer, however, to remember all 
three simply as able and just rulers, types of the best 
that Britain can do in the difficult task of governing an 
alien race. If Dalhousie's measures helped to provoke 
the Mutiny they did so only as part of a whole situation, 
— the administration of millions of Asiatics by a small 
group of Englishmen. Granting all possible ability and 
good-will, it was impossible to avoid the unconscious 
breaking of customs and mutilation of traditions, the mak- 
ing of enemies in the enforcement of law, the awakening 
of dread and jealousy in the minds of native rulers and 
priests. It is posssible that the avoidance of a few mis- 
takes now discernible might have prevented the Mutiny. 



THE INDIAN EMPIRE 255 

It is more likely that it was inevitable, circumstances being 
what they were. The rumor among the sepoys that the 
English were cunningly seeking to make the Hindus out- 
casts by using beef fat in their cartridges, to defile the 
Mohammedans by using the fat of hogs, could not in itself 
have provoked a rising so tremendous and wide-spread. 
But when it is added to the conspiracies of deposed 
princes, aggrieved landowners and fanatic priests, and 
added to an unrest made dangerous by the very diffusion 
of intelligence and free speech that the British govern- 
ment had helped to encourage, then perhaps we may see 
adequate cause for the explosion of 1857. 

The Indian Mutiny was not an Indian Revolution. 
The south took no part in it, nor did the Punjab, nor the 
majority of the Rajputs. It was confined wholly to the 
native army of Bengal and Oudh, joined by a small group 
of the Rajput and Mahratta princes. But even so it 
was sufficiently formidable. Scattered through India 
there were 40,000 British soldiers to 240,000 native sol- 
diers or sepoys, and in the Ganges provinces and Central 
India the native army mutinied practically en masse. 
They were well disciplined, well equipped, and well led. 
Not only did they vastly outnumber the Europeans but 
they were concentrated and prepared, their enemies scat- 
tered and taken by surprise. The Mutiny began when the 



256 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

native regiments stationed at Meerut suddenly rose, killed 
their officers, and marched to Delhi on May 10, 1857. It 
spread with astonishing speed. English men, women and 
children were murdered wherever found, native officers 
took command of their regiments, Delhi was occupied, 
and British rule was wiped out from the borders of the 
Punjab to Benares. At two points only did a handful of 
the English have time to gather for resistance, — Cawn- 
pore and Lucknow. The garrison of Cawnpore held out 
until the middle of July, when it surrendered under a 
promise of safe-conduct. The men were shot down, the 
women and children kept for a time under guard and then 
hacked to pieces. Lucknow was more fortunate. There 
Sir Henry Lawrence was in command until his death early 
in the siege, and his brave spirit animated the little band 
even after his irreparable loss. Not until September 25 
did relief come, and not until two months later were the 
weary survivors able to escape from the walls of their 
prison and reach safety. 

The British authorities had been singularly blind to 
the danger, no doubt; but when the blow fell they aroused 
themselves with swift energy. The name and fame of 
John Lawrence kept the Punjab safe, and the princes, 
people and soldiers of the whole northwest stood solidly 
for the government from which they had received — 



THE INDIAN EMPIRE 257 

thanks to men like John and Henry Lawrence, Herbert 
Edwards and John Nicholson — friendship, understand- 
ing and justice. A little army of British and Sikhs be- 
gan the siege of Delhi. On the other side of the stricken 
area Earl Canning, Dalhousie's successor at Calcutta, 
gathered troops from all directions for an expeditionary 
force, and before the end of June the district of the 
lower Ganges from Calcutta to Allahabad was cleared of 
mutineers and restored to order. 

On July 7 Henry Havelock, a Puritan warrior of 
dauntless soul, the great soldier-saint among England's 
men of action, set out from Allahabad for the relief of 
Cawnpore. On the 17th his soldiers stood by the well 
of Cawnpore only to look with horror and bitter mourn- 
ing on the broken bodies of the women and children 
murdered two days before. Thereafter mercy to the 
mutineers was unthought of; nor was it sought, for the 
rebels knew that they had sinned beyond pardon. Those 
taken in arms were shot with small ceremony, and as news 
of massacre and outrage in outlying centers still came in 
some of the criminals were shot by cannon instead of by 
firing squad in order to strike terror into the rest. Such 
measures were only too natural; murder and pitiless 
cruelty had broken the English self-restraint; but they had 
little effect, and every foot of the British advance was 



258 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

disputed with desperate courage. Two months of hard 
fighting brought Havelock to Lucknow, but so great a 
force of sepoys was concentrated there that the relieving 
army could only enter the Residency and aid the exhausted 
remnant of the original garrison in holding off the hosts 
of mutineers. By the middle of November Colin Camp- 
bell with a larger force reached the outskirts of the city, 
and ten days more of fierce fighting brought him to the 
Residency. Havelock, worn out, died the day after the 
relief. But his work was done, and those whom he had 
guarded were safe. 

In the meantime the army of the northwest, inspired 
by the courage and constancy of Lawrence and John 
Nicholson, had been triumphant. The desperate resist- 
ance to Havelock and Campbell had been inspired partly 
by the knowledge of the mutineers that Delhi had fallen, 
and that unless they could crush these grim avengers they 
would be caught between the upper and the nether mill- 
stone. They fought with the ferocity of men drunk with 
blood and without hope. But numbers, ferocity and able 
leadership availed them nothing. The capture of Delhi 
in September and the hard-won victories of Havelock and 
Campbell had broken the back of the Mutiny. The chief- 
tains who had joined the revolt, the leaders and sepoys 
who had escaped capture or death in Oudh, were crushed 



THE INDIAN EMPIRE 259 

in a series of .desperate battles during the following year 
by Campbell, Outram and Sir Hugh Rose. And with the 
end of the great revolt came the end of the East India 
Company as a sovereign power. Responsible men in 
England had long looked with misgivings on a situation 
that might mean serious disaster and even dishonor to the 
British name, and from time to time acts had been passed 
to bring the Company's doings to at least some extent 
under government control. The Mutiny came as a 
clinching argument. In August, 1858, the sovereignty 
over British India passed to the Crown. 

From 1858 to the present time India has been ruled 
nominally by the sovereign of Great Britain, actually, of 
course, by the British people through the India Office. 
That a vigorous and jealous democracy should occupy the 
position of a despot, that forty-five millions of English- 
men, Scots, Irish and Welsh should rule three hundred 
and fifteen millions of Asiatics on the other side of the 
globe, is anomalous on both counts. But history and 
politics are full of anomalies, and this one grew as we 
have seen from two perfectly normal and human things, 
— the desire to trade and the desire for safety in trading. 
There was nothing wrong or unnatural in the founding 
by Englishmen of trading posts in India. Nor need we 
wonder at their resentment against rivals who tried to 



260 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

oust them, rivals who had no more right there than they 
had, and against chieftains who employed force, fraud 
and cruelty in seeking their destruction. Yet it was cer- 
tainly this desire to trade and to trade in safety that led 
to Arcot and Plassey, to Delhi and the Khyber Pass. 
That wrongs were committed by the English in the course 
of conquest we need not doubt. Wrongs are committed, 
alas, in the " irrepressible conflicts " of history as well as 
in those that are arbitrary or ignoble, and if we seek we 
may* find them in the conquest of New France, in the 
quarrels with Mexico, in the Russian advance through 
Central Asia, in the American advance to the Pacific. 
But the distinctive wonder of the conquest and rule of 
India lies not in such crime or greed as one may dis- 
cover in the record, but in the astonishing naturalness and 
certainty by which a result of such magnitude has come 
from the simplest and most commonplace initial motives. 
No man planned it, nor could any man have prevented it. 
The problems that have had to be faced by the English 
rulers of India are more easily seen than solved. Even 
the question of ordinary administration is complex beyond 
anything in the western hemisphere. It is to be remem- 
bered that India is not a nation. It is more like a conti- 
nent than a country as regards race, religion and nation- 
ality. At least thirty-three languages are spoken between 



THE INDIAN EMPIRE 261 

the Himalayas and Cape Comorin. To say that the ma- 
jority of the people are Hindus is true but deceptive. 1 
The Sikhs of the Punjab and the Buddhists are separated 
from other Hindus by a religious chasm much wider 
than all of the differences combined that separate the 
Englishman from the Spaniard. The rest of the Hindus 
are divided by barriers of caste, language and tradition 
that make the Rajputs, the Bengalees, and the Madrassees 
wholly different peoples. The race that preceded the 
English in the domination of the greater part of India 
was related to the Afghan, and there are still 66,000,000 
Mohammedans in the peninsula. The small, dark hill- 
peoples of the Deccan, — the Gonds, the Bhils and their 
kindred — are of a still different race and religion. To 
cause peace, law and order to prevail among all of these, 
still more to create some sort of unity and take the first 
steps toward self-government, is obviously no small task. 
But peace, law and order represent only the primary 
aims of the Anglo-Indian administration. The fact that 
the British are a western people with a highly developed 
material civilization and an economic sense so powerful 
as to be almost instinctive, means that industry, trade and 
transportation have been stimulated far beyond anything 

1 As deceptive, for instance, as when we apply the word Slav to the 
Serb, the Ruthenian, the Pole and the Muscovite. 



262 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

that India had ever known. The natives themselves 
might care little about this and might question that it has 
brought them any increase of happiness. But the Eng- 
lish would cease to be themselves if they did not seek to 
increase production in every field, to build railroads, to 
unify and simplify matters of tolls, rents and revenues. 
So 35,000 miles of railway have been built, over 
25,000,000 acres have been redeemed from barrenness by 
irrigation, an efficient Forest Department watches over 
the jungle, and the sea-borne trade in 19 16 amounted to 
over a billion dollars. 

Furthermore, since the English at home have gradually 
learned to revere justice, individual liberty and self-gov- 
ernment, to help those in distress, to regard trained intel- 
ligence as an essential of healthy social life, they must try 
with laborious earnestness to apply these to their sub- 
jects in India. The astonished Hindus have had to 
accustom themselves to English notions of impartial and 
systematic justice and the punishment of crime. Wher- 
ever it has seemed practicable they are given the vote — 
as in municipal government. They are given posts in the 
civil service by a strict examination system. Schools and 
universities have been established and the students are 
taught not only reading and writing in their own language 
but the languages and sciences of Europe, the apprecia- 



THE INDIAN EMPIRE 263 

tion of Keats and Moliere, the understanding of eco- 
nomics and politics, of chemistry and bacteriology. And 
when famine and plague are sent by the gods, energetic 
officers on behalf of the government, with armies of 
white and colored assistants, distribute corn, isolate pa- 
tients, establish relief works, enforce rules of sanitation, 
and lavishly spend on saving lives the millions of rupees 
wherewith the newly developed wealth of the country has 
filled the treasury. For by some magic, by. no increase 
of taxes, the Viceroy and his servants seem to have riches 
beyond the dreams of the Great Mogul. 1 

These are the ordinary tasks of administration, to be 
carried through with the least possible irritation of princes 
and priests, landowners and tenants, Mohammedans and 
Brahmins, and the least possible awakening of the in- 
finitely varied religious and social prejudices of the people 
at large. But there still remains also the ancient problem 
of the frontier. As the anxious traders of Madras and 
Calcutta once had to consider danger from the Nawabs, 
as the rulers of the Carnatic and Bengal had to consider 
the menace of Mysore and the Mahrattas, so the lords 
of India have to look to the northwest frontier. In each 

1 Partly because of the immense increase in production and partly 
through extensive government ownership of revenue-bearing public works. 
Thus the net profit to the state from railroads in 1915-6, after meeting 
interest charges, etc., was over four million pounds sterling. 



264 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

case conquest merely carried the danger a little farther 
away. 

India is bounded on the north by some six thousand 
miles of mountain wall, — a wall in places four hundred 
miles broad, and in the main an impassable barrier to in- 
vasion. As a matter of fact it has needed attention for 
centuries only in the northwest, where the Khyber and the 
Bolan passes have long been the highways into India of 
merchant and invader. Here, especially in the great hills 
that overlook the Punjab, the fiercest of mountaineers lurk 
in inaccessible retreats, rob and murder the unwary trav- 
eler, fight one another in endless feuds, combine now and 
then in ferocious crusades against alien intruders, or 
pounce in daring raids on the farms and villages of the 
plains. In their own mountains they are as formidable as 
they are intractable, and there is little prospect of their 
ever being less so. " Except at the times of sowing and 
of harvest a continual state of feud and strife prevails 
throughout the land. 1 Tribe wars with tribe. The peo- 
ple of one valley fight with those of the next. And to 
the quarrels of communities are added the combats of 
individuals. Khan assails Khan. . . . Every tribesman 
has a blood feud with his neighbor. Every man's hand is 
against the other and all against the stranger. Nor are 

1 Winston Churchill, "The Malikand Field Force." 



THE INDIAN EMPIRE 265 

these struggles conducted with the weapons which usually 
belong to the races of such development. To the ferocity 
of the Zulu are added the craft of the redskin and the 
marksmanship of the Boer. The world is presented with 
that grim spectacle — the strength of civilization with- 
out its mercy. At a thousand yards the traveler falls 
wounded by the well-aimed bullet of a breech-loading 
rifle. His assailant, approaching, hacks him to death 
with the ferocity of a South Sea islander. Here the 
weapons of the nineteenth century are in the hands of 
savages of the stone age." 

The presence of such a frontier is of itself a sufficiently 
serious matter. It is as if in a range of hills in the midst 
of Massachusetts or New York, a range ten times as lofty 
and as inaccessible as the Berkshires or the Adirondacks, 
there lived a still unconquered race of Indians as savage 
as the Mohawks of the seventeenth century and as skilled 
in mountain warfare as the Swiss or the Albanians. Per- 
manent peace would be impossible, in that case, except 
through conquest. But conquest of the Himalaya country 
is practically an impossibility. Each forward step of 
British rule in India has been the solution of an insistent 
frontier question by conquest, as has been the case under 
somewhat different superficial conditions with the ad- 
vance of the English race in America. But each new 



266 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

frontier was wider than the old one and quite as difficult, 
until now the customary solution of the problem seems at 
last a hopeless one. All that can be done is to maintain 
a military force to serve as frontier police, to seize and 
hold as many strategic points as possible, to guard and 
keep the peace in the two great passes, and to maintain a 
sleepless watch against the tidal wave of ferocious sav- 
agery that may at any moment surge and swell in the 
mountains under the impulse of some half-demented 
prophet. 

But this is not all. Back of the mountains lies Afghan- 
istan. And back of Afghanistan lies Russia. In these 
days of a divided, torn, idealistic Russia, bewildered by 
its new problems, one is apt to forget the dread and sus- 
picion with which the western peoples once regarded the 
empire of the Czars. But that dread was both keen and 
justifiable, and for generations the thinking men of India 
seldom forgot the menacing power that looked enviously 
south from Central Asia. 

Indeed there are few more dramatic instances of that 
most spectacular peril of imperialism — the rivalry of 
two expanding empires. Russian expansion in Asia be- 
gan in the days of Ivan the Terrible ( 158 1 ) , when Eliza- 
beth was on the throne of England. But the conquest of 
Siberia between 1580 and 1636 and the expansion south 



THE INDIAN EMPIRE 267 

to the Amur in the far east mattered not at all to Eng- 
land or to any other power in Europe. When the Treaty 
of Nertchinsk was signed in 1689 between Russia and 
China the frontiers of England and Russia in Asia were 
four thousand miles apart, 1 and Russia's advance to the 
Oxus was as little anticipated as England's to the Indus. 
By 1800 Russia had absorbed the Khirghiz steppes, and 
England's influence, guided by Wellesley, was creeping 
into the interior of India; the distance between the two 
empires had dwindled to two thousand miles, and the 
Czar Paul was planning an invasion of India by way of 
the Caspian Sea and Afghanistan. Between 1800 and 
1850 England annexed the Northwest Province, Scinde, 
the Punjab and — six years later — Oudh, so that her 
frontier posts touched the foot of the mountains. In the 
same time Russia had reached across the desert steppes 
and was launching boats on the Aral Sea. The distance 
was reduced to one thousand miles. The advance through 
Tashkent to Khiva, Samarcand and Bokhara in the sixties 
cut the thousand down to four hundred. Transcaspia 
was annexed in 1884, and in 1895 the Pamirs Commis- 
sion appointed to arrange the frontier question perma- 

1 These few statements are practically a condensation of Roberts' ad- 
mirably clear and interesting statement of the matter in his " Forty-one 
Years in India," a book that every student of Imperial England should 
read. A fuller account will be found in Curzon, " Russia in Asia " and 
in Skrine and Ross, " The Heart of Asia." 



268 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

nently and satisfactorily (!!), left the empires touching 
at last on the " roof of the world " and separated for hun- 
dreds of miles west of the Pamirs only by the restless 
country of Afghanistan. 

For years before 1895 this result had been foreseen. 
But what was to be done ? England might protest against 
the annexation of Merv and Bokhara, but she could not 
really prevent it any more than Russia could prevent the 
annexation of Oudh. How then could safety be assured? 
Was England to watch the advance of Russia until the 
Cossacks watered their horses in the Cabul River or even 
the Indus, or should she forestall her rival and seize in 
time the most important strategic points ? Simply so that 
we may see the situation let us note two expert opinions 
of forty years ago. Here is the opinion of Sir Herbert 
Edwards, one of the ablest and sanest officers of his day in 
India : " By waiting on our present frontier we husband 
our money, organize our line of defense, rest upon our 
base and railroads, save our troops from fatigue and 
bring our heaviest artillery into the field; while the enemy 
can only bring light guns into the passes, has to bribe and 
fight his way across Afghanistan, wears out and decimates 
his army, exhausts his treasury and carriage, and when 
defeated has to retreat through the passes and over all 
Afghanistan — plundered at every march by the tribes." 



THE INDIAN EMPIRE 269 

Note this carefully, and then add this utterance by Lord 
Lawrence, whose advice was equally against a " forward 
policy ": " The approach of Russia may involve us in 
great difficulties ; and this being the case it will be a wise 
and prudent policy to endeavor to maintain a thoroughly 
friendly power between India and Russia. . . . Never- 
theless, ... it is quite out of our power to reckon with 
any degree of certainty on the attainment of this desirable 
end. And I feel no shadow of a doubt that if a formid- 
able invasion of India from the west were imminent, the 
Afghans en masse from the Ameer of the day to the do- 
mestic slave of the household would readily join in it." x 
If Edwards and Lawrence were right, therefore, it 
was wise not to advance a step farther, but to maintain a 
buffer state which might bear the brunt of any possible 
attack. The obvious " buffer " was Afghanistan. So 
Viceroy after Viceroy sedulously cultivated friendship 
with Afghanistan and supplied the gratified Ameers with 
money and rifles with little corresponding return. For 
the Afghans had an invincible objection to the residence 
of an ambassador of any power whatever at Cabul. 
They had faith moreover, based not without reason on the 

1 See Temple's " Lord Lawrence " and in more detail G. Bosworth 
Smith's " Lord Lawrence." A most admirable and fascinating presentation 
of the history of the question with a strong argument for the " forward 
policy " is in Lady Betty Balfour, " Lytton's Indian Administration." 



270 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

first Afghan war, in their ability to prevent any perma- 
nent conquest of their country and to make an invasion so 
difficult and unpleasant that it would not be lightly under- 
taken. So in the eyes of some men the situation was 
unsatisfactory. The buffer state might at any moment 
ally itself with Russia in an invasion, as many a time had 
been done in the old days before the British conquest. 
The money and arms furnished by British India and re- 
ceived with lavish assurance might be turned against the 
givers, and Lawrence's prediction be fulfilled. No cer- 
tainty was possible without the presence of a British resi- 
dent at Cabul and some effective means of getting troops 
through from India. 

The time came at last when practically conclusive in- 
formation came to Lord Lytton, Viceroy of India, that 
Russia was in secret correspondence with the Ameer, and 
definite news came that a Russian officer had been received 
with state in Cabul. Lytton and his chief at home, Lord 
Beaconsfield, were in agreement as to the immediate need 
of remonstrance. An ultimatum, a victorious war, the 
triumphant placing of an envoy — the gallant Cavagnari 
— in Cabul, his murder, another war closed triumphantly 
and ineffectively by a stately treaty, — these followed in 
rapid succession. But there was still no permanent em- 
bassy in the Afghan capital, and little had been really 



THE INDIAN EMPIRE 271 

achieved beyond an increased respect in the minds of the 
Afghans for the British arms. Russia had in a measure 
avenged herself for the check England had given her at 
the Congress of Berlin. A costly war, glorious enough, 
conducted with ability and gallantry to a successful end, 
had yet left matters very much as they were before. And 
since then soldiers and statesmen have gone on strug- 
gling with the situation, building a railroad through the 
Bolan Pass to Quetta — within striking distance of Cand- 
ahar — chastising and conciliating the mountain tribes, 
and at all costs keeping the peace along the frontier and 
through the Khyber Pass. 

If we say that India represents a still unsolved problem 
in government we are saying only what is obvious. But 
if we mean that statement to apply to India in any dis- 
tinctive and peculiar sense it is not true. Few of the 
really profound and complex problems of politics can be 
said to be finally solved, and the problem of India seems 
unique only because it affects three hundred millions of 
people and because it brings to our minds so many asso- 
ciations of power, of beauty, and of mystery. Essen- 
tially it is the problem of the Philippines in that it is the 
rule by westerners, according to western methods and 
ideals, over an eastern people. But at the same time 
there are grave differences. The population of the Phil- 



272 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

ippines can hardly be more than eight millions; Catholic 
Christianity is the dominant religion of the islands; at 
least seven-eighths of the people are of one race; and 
there is little in the past history of the Filipinos to awaken 
pride or emulation. The single province of Bengal con- 
tains forty-five million souls; the Christians form less 
than two per cent, of the population of India; the racial 
mixture is far more complex than that of all Europe, in- 
including even Austria-Hungary and the Balkans; and ar- 
chitectural and literary monuments of immortal beauty 
bear witness to a glorious past to which the thoughtful 
Hindu bows down with passionate reverence. The re- 
sponsibilities of governing such a people are not easily to 
be over-estimated. Yet much has been done. No inter- 
nal war has broken the peace of India since 1858. So far 
as human effort can assure it the poorest peasant and the 
wealthiest land-owner receive equal justice. Native coun- 
cils and a vernacular press express the people's will, voice 
their grievances or their hopes, and educate the masses in 
social thinking. The genius of the Hindus has been di- 
rected in the past to the fields of art, religion, and philos- 
ophy. Their new rulers have placidly encouraged them 
to face the perilous problems of politics and social better- 
ment. The result of it all no man can foresee. Accord- 
ing to the way one looks at it it is " shooting Niagara " 



THE INDIAN EMPIRE 273 

or climbing an Olympus whose top is hidden in clouds. 
But taken all in all the government of British India is the 
most successful and the most courageous experiment in 
the rule of an alien people of which the world has any 
record. Instead of being a burden to drag the empire 
down India has proved a source of strength, and no prob- 
lem that the English have ever faced has done so much to 
teach them humility, human sympathy, honesty, and 
withal a firmer confidence in their own best ideals. 



XII 

THE ROAD TO THE EAST: EGYPT 

During the nineteenth century the British Empire was 
slowly becoming a world-wide nation. But a nation 
united by oceans in normal times of peace may be divided 
by them in times of war. An India or an Australia 
bristling with fortresses is insecure in its imperial and 
world relations if the sea highways are unguarded. And 
this means more than a great navy, essential as a navy 
may be. Even the most hurried glance at the map will 
show us point after point where naval power might be 
powerfully aided or largely nullified by the possession or 
non-possession of a small area of land. Take, for in- 
stance, the road to the East. At the Strait of Gibraltar, 
at the point where the Mediterranean narrows between 
Sicily and Cape Bon, at either extremity of the Red Sea, 
a rival to the power of Great Britain might endanger at 
any moment that free communication with her eastern 
possessions which she rightly holds to be of such enormous 
importance. When Gibraltar was taken in 1704 this was 

by no means understood. The Rock was held for a 

274 



THE ROAD TO THE EAST 275 

hundred years as little more than a trophy, and great 
statesmen denounced its retention from Spain as unworthy 
of a magnanimous people. But the extension of Britain's 
interests in the East in the latter half of the eighteenth 
century clarified her vision somewhat, as it certainly did 
that of her enemies. Napoleon's stroke at Egypt in 1798 
was evidence that he at least saw the possibility of striking 
at India by severing the chain, as yet unguarded except by 
the fleet of Nelson, which connected the British Islands 
with the Arabian Sea. And in 1 801-3 England retained 
Malta chiefly because her surrender of the islands would 
have meant their occupation by Napoleon. So as the 
importance of the Mediterranean highway dawned by 
degrees on the statesmen of England the nineteenth cen- 
tury saw a gradual tightening of grip on Gibraltar and 
Malta, an increased interest in everything concerned with 
Constantinople, and a growing anxiety regarding Egypt. 
The southern entrance to the Red Sea could be and was 
secured in time by the occupation of the little island of 
Perim and the port of Aden. But Egypt was no mere 
fortress. Egypt was a country of fame exceeding that 
of most countries in the world, of wealth, and — in the 
nineteenth century, thanks to Mehemet Ali — of some en- 
ergy and power. She was a recognized province of an 
empire obviously declining, indeed, and little able to pre- 



276 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

serve order, and yet not so dead that it could be dismem- 
bered with decency or safety. Here, then, was the point 
on the whole road to the East that promised most embar- 
rassment. 

In the fullness of time this embarrassment took shape 
in the form of a distinct dilemma. A French engineer 
backed by French capital achieved that which English 
experts and public engineering opinion in the world at 
large had pronounced impossible. In 1864 the Suez 
Canal was begun. In November, 1869, it was opened 
in the presence of the Emperor and Empress of the 
French and representatives from every power in the com- 
mercial world, and England's old rival in India, flushed 
with a just pride in the courage and skill of De Lesseps, 
seemed installed as the patron and guardian of this gate- 
way to the East. It was a gateway infinitely more val- 
uable to England than to France, but its possession was 
none the less welcome to the proud nation whose triumphs 
over its island neighbor had been so few since the days of 
Montcalm or even since Louis XIV. England had had 
her opportunity, but the caution which so often has been 
her safety had this time betrayed her, and she apparently 
had to accept the consequences. 

Yet it is never safe in politics to accept a foregone con- 
clusion. The emperor who so proudly presided over the 



THE ROAD TO THE EAST 277 

ceremonies at Suez was twelve months later a broken and 
powerless exile. France, smitten and humiliated by the 
German invasion, by the Commune of '71, by the years 
of doubt that saw the launching of the Third Republic, 
was little able to watch over her interests in the East. 
At Cairo the spendthrift, irresponsible and picturesque 
Ismail, aided and encouraged by a joyous crew of officials 
who plundered and reveled at will in a carnival of prodi- 
gality, dazzled the astonished world by his splendor, his 
enterprise, his modern spirit, while he drove his helpless 
country full tilt toward an abyss of bankruptcy. All went 
cheerily until ready money began to fail. It became diffi- 
cult to find capitalists who had a proper spirit of confi- 
dence in the Khedive's ability to pay his debts. And so 
it came about that the embarrassed prince bethought him 
of the market value of his shares in the Suez Canal, nearly 
half of which he had secured when the company was first 
organized. They were offered for sale. The great He- 
brew, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, was Prime 
Minister of Great Britain, and before France had begun 
to realize what was going on England had remedied her 
mistake of a few years before and had become the con- 
trolling shareholder in the Suez Canal. 

But already the consequences of Ismail's misgovern- 
ment were showing themselves. Egypt was approaching 



278 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

a financial crash that would carry disaster to every country 
in Europe and imperil law and order from Alexandria to 
the Soudan. Any catastrophe that would impair the effi- 
ciency of the canal in the least degree, while it mattered 
to Great Britain three times more than to all the rest of 
Europe put together, yet was a serious matter to the whole 
world. It was an affair that might very well be dealt 
with, if action were necessary, by concert of the Powers, 
and this as a matter of fact was done. The oppression 
of Europeans by the demoralized Egyptian administration 
was checked by the creation of the International Courts, 
which removed subjects of the Six Great Powers 1 from 
the jurisdiction of the Khedive. And in May, 1876, was 
established the Caisse de la Dette, practically a committee 
appointed by the Powers to supervise the finances of the 
country and steer Egypt out of bankruptcy. A policy of 
caution and retrenchment succeeded the era of wild ex- 
travagance, but the inauguration of a sounder finance was 
not to be without difficulties and bitter friction. Ismail, 
without any adequate return in the shape of durable fixed 
capital, had, since his accession in 1863, increased the 
national debt from three millions to ninety-eight. His 
careless and lavish expenditure had given to Egypt the 
irresponsible feeling about money that comes from the 

1 Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Austria, and Italy. 



THE ROAD TO THE EAST 279 

apparent possession of vast wealth that has dropped from 
heaven. The sudden stoppage of the loans, the sudden 
cessation of needless expenditure, the ruthless decision of 
the Caisse that interest on the debt and — by degrees — 
the debt itself must be paid not by renewed borrowing but 
by taxation, meant hardship not only for the official world 
but for the people at large. The officers of government, 
the army, the fellahin were at once deprived of the false 
prosperity that Ismail had given them and borne down 
with the unwonted taxation calmly imposed on them by 
a board of foreigners. The sins of the government had 
fallen heavily on the people, and it is not to be wondered 
at that Egypt, groaning bitterly under the burden and 
under the disillusionment, laid the blame on Europe. 

The establishment of the International Courts and the 
Caisse de la Dette was obviously of little avail without 
some effort to guide and in a measure supervise the gov- 
ernment which had proved itself so incapable. But such 
a task seemed scarcely to call for the continued action 
of the Six Powers, and the autumn of 1876 saw accord- 
ingly the beginning of the " Dual Control " by England 
and France. Each power was sufficiently jealous of the 
other, it was thought, to make any usurpation by either 
one impossible. At the same time the International 
Courts and the Caisse protected the other nations in re- 



280 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

gard to finance and justice. Little was left indeed of 
any independent power on the part of the Khedive, and 
still less when Ismail was deposed in 1879; and yet so 
far no step had been taken by any power from motives 
of aggrandizement. All took the ground that however 
applicable principles of noninterference might be to other 
countries, Egypt was in a class by herself. Her position 
made her affairs of interest to the whole world. The 
accident that made Turks and Egyptians lords of the 
Nile Valley and the Isthmus of Suez could not, it was 
said, be urged as any reason why they should be gate- 
keepers between the East and West unless they were pre- 
pared to live up to the responsibility so incurred. " The 
inalienable rights of the individual," says Captain Mahan 
with some appearance of justice, " are entitled to a respect 
which they unfortunately do not always get; but there is 
no inalienable right in any community to control the use 
of a region when it does so to the detriment of the world 
at large, of its neighbors in particular, or even at times of 
its own subjects." * In which statement and in its appli- 
cation to Egypt there is doubtless room for discussion. 
And yet perhaps the reasons are sufficiently clear that in- 
duced Europe to interfere in the affairs of Egypt and in- 

1 Harper's Monthly Magazine, March, 1897. 



THE ROAD TO THE EAST 281 

duced England and France to undertake the responsibili- 
ties of actual and somewhat burdensome supervision. 

All went, if not exactly well, yet tolerably, until the 
early days of 188*, when Tewfik, Khedive of Egypt, and 
the governments of England and France began to be 
troubled by the machinations of an Egyptian officer of 
active and energetic mind named Arabi. He was the cen- 
ter and leader of a movement that was perfectly natural 
and yet essentially impossible, a movement directed 
against the foreign influence that had prevailed since 
1876, and inspired by the war-cry of "Egypt for the 
Egyptians." Throughout the year the mutinous spirit 
spread through the army, caught the heart of the people 
at large, and finally seized upon the administration and 
tied the hands of the Khedive. Egypt was on the brink 
of a revolution which would destroy the remnant of Turk- 
ish rule and emancipate Cairo wholly from foreign influ- 
ence. But what of the International Courts and the 
Caisse and the Dual Control? Let it be remembered 
that Egypt had been under despotic foreign rule — Per- 
sian, Macedonian, Roman, Arab or Turkish — for over 
twenty-five hundred years. The native Egyptian was even 
less able to cope with the problems of government than the 
Turk, Armenian or Greek whom he hated. To see for- 



282 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

eign influence expelled from Cairo would be to see the only 
skilled administrators - — such as they were — in the coun- 
try forced to leave, and Egypt left in the hands of native 
officials, some corrupt and some honest, but all incom- 
petent and untrained, with a nerveless, spiritless, ignorant 
population to be fleeced by usurper and tax-gatherer. 
Things were unquestionably in far from ideal shape. 
The spirit of the rebellion was neither unnatural nor 
ignoble. Yet it was impossible for any one who had a 
particle of interest in the maintenance of a safe road to 
the East to look on without dismay and misgivings. If 
the whole affair had been taking place in Central Africa 
the case would have been entirely changed. But the 
drunken riot to which we give only a glance and frown 
of disgust when we read of it in our newspaper causes 
quite another emotion when it occurs on our front porch 
or on the road by which our children go to school. And 
events which Englishmen might have viewed with equa- 
nimity in some parts of the globe caused them the utmost 
anxiety in Egypt. France was almost equally disturbed. 
The great orator Gambetta moved heaven and earth to 
achieve an Anglo-French demonstration that would re- 
store order. And even Gladstone, of all men the least 
inclined to favor unnecessary interference, at last made 
up his mind that if the Sultan would not move, and if the 



THE ROAD TO THE EAST 283 

combined Powers would do nothing, England at any rate 
could not remain idle. 

Not until he had tried every other solution of the diffi- 
culty did the great Liberal minister come to this conclu- 
sion. For he knew as many did not the gravity of the 
situation and the tremendous forces that would be set in 
motion if English troops had to crush the rebellion and 
bring order to Egypt. " Territorial questions," he wrote 
in 1877, 1 " are not to be disposed of by arbitrary limits; 
we cannot enjoy the luxury of taking Egyptian soil by 
pinches. We may seize an Aden or a Perim, where there 
is no already formed community of inhabitants, and cir- 
cumscribe a tract at will. But our first site in Egypt, be 
it by larceny or be it by emption, will be the almost certain 
egg of a North African Empire, that will grow and grow 
until another Victoria and another Albert, titles of the 
lake-sources of the White Nile, come within our bor- 
ders; and till we finally join hands across the equator 
with Natal and Cape Town, to say nothing of the Trans- 
vaal and the Orange River on the south, or of Abyssinia 
or Zanzibar to be swallowed by way of viaticum on our 
journey." Never was there a truer forecast. And it 
may be imagined how earnestly a statesman of such con- 

1 Nineteenth Century, August, 1877; Gleanings of past years, IV, 357; 
Morley's " Gladstone, III," chapter V. 



284 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

victions would strain every nerve to avoid taking the first 
step in such a formidable progress. Gladstone was not 
distinguished by love of the Turks, but the intervention 
of the Sultan seemed to him an infinitely less dangerous 
thing than the intervention of England. But the Sultan, 
obstinately blind, refused either to intervene himself or 
cooperate in a conference of the Powers, deliberately con- 
ferring upon England the right of exclusive control in 
the affairs of Egypt. This Gladstone declined. A com- 
bined demonstration of the fleets of England and France 
was decided on, and this combined action of the two 
powers would, it was hoped, avert the worst consequences 
of interference. 

Then Gambetta fell from power. The government of 
France became doubtful and vacillating. And it was un- 
der these unpromising conditions, when no one was sure 
that the presence of the allied fleet in the harbor of Alex- 
andria meant anything whatever, that the revolution ap- 
proached the lurid stage. Definite danger menaced the 
Khedive and those who were loyal to him. On June n, 
1882, a mob at Alexandria murdered some fifty Euro- 
peans and severely wounded the British consul. Out- 
breaks and murders in other places seemed to indicate 
that the expected reign of anarchy had arrived. Egyp- 
tian soldiers were working night and day at the harbor 



THE ROAD TO THE EAST 285 

fortifications and at batteries commanding the fleet. If 
action were contemplated at all — if the Dual Control 
meant anything — then now was certainly the moment for 
a definite blow. Sharp orders came at last from England, 
and early in July the British admiral advised those on 
shore that unless work on the batteries was discontinued 
he would be compelled to destroy them. On July 1 1 this 
was done, the French fleet having previously sailed away, 
leaving the responsibility of the action which both gov- 
ernments knew to be necessary to fall on England. That 
act of refusal ended the Dual Control. England had 
taken on herself the burden of restoring order in Egypt. 1 
The result is one of the most instructive cases on record 
of what might be called constructive imperialism. Per- 
haps the greatest single difficulty in England's way lay in 
the fact that she never has had a free hand. Egypt has 
never been a colony or dependency; only since the out- 
break of the Great War has there even been a protec- 
torate. Nominally and in great part actually Egypt was 
until 1914 an autonomous province of the Ottoman Em- 
pire, the British control over her international relations 
and the advising power of the British Consul General at 
Cairo being largely a matter of tacit understanding. The 
ancient Capitulations by which the subjects of something 

1 See Cromer, Modem Egypt, Parts I-II. 



286 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

like twenty-three different powers were outside the juris- 
diction of the Egyptian courts made it difficult to maintain 
order, and the universally understood reality of the Brit- 
ish power did not obviate the inconvenience of its informal 
basis and jealously limited scope. 

Yet the system had its advantages even from the Brit- 
ish point of view. The English in Egypt were advisers, 
protectors, inspectors; but the country was and is admin- 
istered by Egyptians. Most of the offices are held by 
sons of the soil, and an elected Legislative Council has 
helped to train the people in the difficult and unfamiliar 
art of politics. It is true that British influence pene- 
trates the whole machinery of state, but it is influence, not 
management. The deposition of the last Khedive, Abbas 
Hilmi, in 19 14, the cutting loose from Turkish suzerainty, 
the nomination of a Sultan, and the proclamation of a 
British protectorate did not change a single essential fact. 
Egypt is still governed by Egyptians instead of by Turks, 
even though English inspectors guard the treasury and 
the tax-payers from rapacity and dishonesty, and though a 
British High Commissioner is there to give suggestion 
and advice to the Sultan. 

From 1883 to 1907 the man at the helm in Egypt was 
Evelyn Baring, better known now as the Earl of Cromer, 
and it is he more than any other one man who must be 



THE ROAD TO THE EAST 287 

regarded as the creator of the Egypt of to-day. His 
status in the Egyptian government was simply that of 
British Consul General, and nominally his power was lim- 
ited to advice and suggestion. Actually, however, his 
word was almost law, not simply because he was backed 
by the power of Britain but because of his amazing apti- 
tude for the great task of the redemption of Egypt. 
Aided by a small group of expert colleagues and assist- 
ants who looked up to him as their all-wise chief he set 
himself to the task of clearing away the rubbish of ages, 
of placing Egyptian finance, justice, agriculture and pub- 
lic health on a sound foundation, and making the country 
(Caisse de la Dette) representing the six great powers, 
an orderly, prosperous, happy and self-respecting state. 

In the field of finance he had to start from the bottom, 
and had, moreover, to work under the constant and jeal- 
ous veto power of the commissioners of the public debt 
Egypt was almost bankrupt, and the people — working 
under conditions that had been little if at all improved 
since the age of the pyramid-builders — were oppressed 
by a heavy taxation and a corrupt officialdom that made 
life a never-ending and soul-numbing labor of Sisyphus, 
hopeless and crushing. To increase the revenues and 
to escape insolvency it was necessary both to economize 
in expenditure and to develop the country's resources. 



288 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

By the London Convention of 1885 an arrangement 
was agreed upon by the Powers which provided a work- 
ing basis for financial reconstruction. The interest on 
bonds was lowered and the public debt was consolidated. 
A definite proportion of the annual budget was assigned 
to the Cause de la Dette, and the remainder to current ex- 
penses. If the cost of administration in any year should 
exceed the appropriation and the amount assigned to the 
Cause should exceed the interest charges the government 
could ask for a grant from the commissioners. If the 
Cause still had a surplus it was divided evenly between 
the two funds, half being devoted to the reduction of the 
debt and half to expenses. But to make this workable 
nine additional millions had to be borrowed to get rid of 
a number of extravagant short loans and miscellaneous 
debts incurred by Ismail, and of the nine million pounds 
the Egyptian government managed to secure one million 
for the repair and completion of the Delta Barrage and 
the clearing of the canals. On the face of it the spend- 
ing of this million looked like extravagance; in reality it 
was an investment that was to yield more than one hun- 
dred per cent, return within two years. 

The recovery of Egypt's solvency might be traced in 
an apparently dry but really illuminating page of figures, 
— illuminating because every pound saved meant a bur- 



THE ROAD TO THE EAST 289 

den taken from the backs of the people, and because 
every pound spent on irrigation, roads and canals 
meant a permanent addition to the country's wealth. 
But we shall be content to sum up the general result. 
First, the revenue has increased by leaps and bounds. 
Second, the taxation has been diminished and at the same 
time reapportioned to rest less heavily on the peasants. 
Third, the four great dams, the Delta Barrage and the 
huge dams at Assiut, Esneh and Assouan, have increased 
the cultivable area of Egypt by much more than a mil- 
lion acres and have paid for their cost many times over. 
Fourth, by adding to the annual expenditure the sum of 
about 400,000 pounds the government has been able to 
abolish the Corvee, forced labor on clearing canals and 
on public works of all kinds,— a terrible burden which 
had rested on the fellahin of Egypt for uncounted ages. 

Among the visible results of the British occupation the 
most impressive, no doubt, is the improvement in irriga- 
tion. The ancient system of irrigation in Egypt was the 
simple process of holding back as much as possible of the 
Nile's annual overflow in basins of all sizes and using this 
reserved water during the dry season. In the days of 
Mehemet Ali (1843) tne Delta Barrage was commenced, 
damming the Nile near Cairo in order to regulate the irri- 
gation of the most fertile and populous portion of the 



2 9 o IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

country. 1 It was completed in 1861, but was found im- 
mediately to be of faulty construction. The masonry 
began to crack and the whole structure to settle. Within 
a few years it was a mere mass of useless stone and con- 
crete, an impressive monument of the mismanagement 
and corruption of the old regime, while the fertile but 
thirsty lands of the Delta slowly deteriorated and the cot- 
ton growers found their burden becoming steadily heavier. 
In 1883 the new administration faced the situation. Sir 
Colin Scott-Moncrieff, an Anglo-Indian irrigation expert, 
was summoned to take charge of the matter. Within ten 
years the Barrage had been patched up, the foundations 
practically rebuilt, and the whole work strengthened. 
The maximum head of water held up by the dam in 1863 
before its collapse had been 5 feet 9 inches. In 1890 it 
was holding 9 feet 10 inches, and the year after it held 
13 feet with no difficulty. The effect may be stated in 
figures. The original cost had been 1,800,000 pounds 
plus a vast levy of forced labor. The cost of the im- 
provement under British management was less than 
500,000 pounds. The increased production in cotton 

1 The fan-shaped area below Cairo known as Lower Egypt or the 
Delta has a population of about 5,500,000, and there is grown the greater 
part of the cotton which is Egypt's staple industry. Upper Egypt, the long 
narrow strip of valley between Cairo and Assouan (500 miles), has a 
population of something over 4,700,000. 



THE ROAD TO THE EAST 291 

alone was estimated at about £800,000 annually, even in 
1889, while the work was still incomplete. 

But there still remained great areas of land in the Nile 
valley which only needed water to redeem them from the 
desert. In 1902 were completed the dams at Assouan, 
the ancient Syene, 500 miles above Cairo, and at Assiut, 
half way between Assouan and the apex of the Delta. 
An additional barrage was completed at Esneh in 1909. 
The Assouan dam alone increased the cultivable area of 
the country by 500,000 acres, and this was doubled by the 
further additions of 19 12. It is now proposed to add to 
these works a further dam at the Victoria Nyanza which 
will bridle the Nile still more effectively and substitute 
for the annual inundation of the father of waters an im- 
mense system of perennial irrigation. 

Perhaps not even irrigation has done so much for the 
lasting good of Egypt as the steady wiping out of the 
tradition of corruption, incapacity, and government in 
the interests of a single class. For the first time in ages 
the cultivator can calculate to a fraction what he will 
have to pay in rent and taxes, and can contemplate with 
amazement the phenomenon of increased production and 
diminished taxation. For the first time in ages forced 
labor for the government is unknown. If foreign con- 
trol irritates the official classes — themselves nearly all 



292 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Turks, Armenians, Albanians or Greeks under the old 
regime — it is a matter of supreme indifference to the 
mass of the people. Persians, Macedonians, Romans, 
Byzantines and Turks had ruled Egypt for over two 
thousand years before the days of Cromer and Kitchener, 
and the English protectorate is an insignificant detail to a 
population that has never known political freedom. And 
the English, for their part, are interested only in Egypt 
becoming a stable, law-abiding and self-respecting state. 
The Suez Canal brought them there, and now they stay 
partly because of the Canal, partly because there is work 
to be done. But they do not govern the country; they 
have never annexed it; and they probably never will. As 
far as the Empire is concerned Egypt is a protege and a 
vitally important station on the road to the East. 

The real crises of modern Egyptian history are then 
crises of finance and administration, of the clearing of 
canals and the building of dams, not of battles and inter- 
national rivalries. Yet Egypt has had her frontier ques- 
tion also, and it is an instructive one. Indeed the story 
of the valley of the Nile in the last forty years is one 
of the best illustrations in history of the curious way 
in which events, themselves unlooked for and apparently 
accidental, may lead with inexorable certainty to unde- 
sired and disconcerting results. It is a lesson already 



THE ROAD TO THE EAST 293 

seen in the conquest of India, but it is worth while to look 
for a moment at the case of the Soudan. So let us turn 
to the first problem that Mr. Gladstone and his cabinet 
had to face in Egypt after Wolseley had finally broken 
Arabi's resistance at Tel-el-Kebir, and after Tewfik Pasha 
had seated himself securely once more on his shaken 
throne in a humbled and more or less relieved Cairo. 

In 188 1, when Egypt was growing more and more rest- 
less each month, there arose a prophet at Dongola on the 
Nile whom the world came to know as El Mahdi. Sel- 
dom has a deliverer been more needed by a wretched peo- 
ple than by the Soudanese when El Mahdi began to preach 
his fiery gospel. Conquered in 18 19 by the son of Mehe- 
met Ali, the Soudan had been held more or less inse- 
curely since by a government which was ambitious beyond 
its capacity, and which would better have sought to gov- 
ern Egypt alone adequately than to control the desert 
region of the Upper Nile. " I look upon the possession 
of the Soudan," said Gladstone before the Khartoum 
tragedy had made the whole problem an English one, " as 
the calamity of Egypt. It has been a drain on her treas- 
ury, it has been a drain on her men. It is estimated that 
one hundred thousand Egyptians have laid down their 
lives in endeavoring to maintain that barren conquest." 
But far from abandoning the Soudan as the century went 



294 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

on the dominion of Egypt was extended in the days of 
Ismail over Darfur and Kordofan. Not that the Egyp- 
tians could fight better than the Soudanese, but they had 
the advantage of a more advanced civilization, and the 
savage, divided, quarrelsome tribes were overcome one by 
one by the better disciplined, better led, though less war- 
like forces from the north. But to divide and conquer 
was an easy task compared with the steady, never-ending 
burden of government. The officials and soldiers sent 
from Cairo were practically licensed brigands who 
wrought their pleasure on the unhappy Soudanese un- 
checked by Pasha or Khedive. Only while Gordon was 
Governor-General of the Soudan (practically 1874-9) 
was there any real attempt to fulfill the duties of a sover- 
eign power to its subjects, and six months' absence of his 
strong hand and incorruptible soul left matters in as in- 
tolerable shape as ever. No wonder then that chiefs and 
warriors all over that vast area should turn with eager- 
ness towards the Prophet of Dongola, as he preached 
crusade and deliverance from the hated yoke of Egypt. 
Up to the summer of 1882 England had no responsi- 
bility, no power and no knowledge of the Soudan. The 
personality of Gordon interested his countrymen, and they 
read with admiring pride the occasional newspaper jot- 
tings of his achievements in distant Africa as the good 



THE ROAD TO THE EAST 295 

people of Pennsylvania or Texas might glow over the 
doings of some brave American adventurer in China or 
Morocco. But Alexandria and Tel-el-Kebir changed the 
situation. Without being nominally or actually in charge 
of the administration of Egypt, Baring in Cairo and 
Gladstone in London yet were in a position distantly re- 
sembling that of Clive in Bengal after Plassey, and be- 
fore many weeks they had to determine the character 
of the advice they were prepared to give regarding 
the Soudan. Gladstone's feeling about its value to Egypt 
we have noted, and with this sentiment Baring and his 
associates agreed. But to make this feeling effective and 
authoritative in a country in which England had no legal 
power was a matter of some delicacy. The prime min- 
ister knew the abyss towards which the relentless cur- 
rent of events was drifting him, and he resisted it with all 
his strength, even in the face of a crisis. For the rapid 
disappearance of the old tribal divisions and the forma- 
tion of a great empire under El Mahdi made the matter 
a pressing one. Instant offensive action was demanded 
if the Soudan was to be held, and such action, in spite 
of the recommendations of the English statesmen — and 
as yet they hesitated to do more than recommend — was 
decided on by the government of the Khedive. An able 
English officer in the Egyptian service, General Hicks, 



296 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

was commissioned to check the Mahdi and reconquer the 
Soudan. This Gladstone should doubtless have forbid- 
den, but he still hoped that England might soon leave 
Egypt entirely alone, and desired not to assume any re- 
sponsibility that might be thought to imply a claim of 
over-lordship. So Hicks went forth with his Egyptians, 
won some small successes, and finally on the fifth of No- 
vember, 1883, was destroyed with his entire force by the 
fierce-fighting followers of El Mahdi. 

Action by England now was imperative if she was to 
assume, as was unavoidable, any responsibility whatever 
for the defense of Egypt. In January, 1884, Gordon 
himself wrote to Lord Granville that the Soudan ever 
was and ever would be a useless possession and that the 
only wise or even possible policy was that of evacuation. 
To do this there was practically no disagreement. But 
at Khartoum and at points throughout the Soudan there 
were still to be considered the Egyptian garrisons, soon 
to be surrounded and annihilated by the fast rising tide 
of the Prophet's power. Should not some responsible 
officer be sent to Khartoum to carry through the evacua- 
tion and bring away the garrisons from the abandoned 
posts? This decision was by no means an easy one. But 
after anxious debate it was at last decided to send Gor- 
don to evacuate the Soudan. Wolseley — the victor of 



THE ROAD TO THE EAST 297 

Tel-el-Kebir, now commander-in-chief — brought Gordon 
to the room in which a committee of the cabinet were 
sitting, went in to confer with them, came out soon and 
said to Gordon — as the latter himself reports the con- 
versation, " Government are determined to evacuate the 
Soudan, for they will not guarantee the government. 
Will you go and do it? " I said, " Yes." He said, " Go 
in." I went in and saw them. They said, " Did Wolse- 
ley tell you our orders? " I said, u Yes." I said, " You 
will not guarantee future government of the Soudan, and 
you wish me to go up and evacuate now." They said, 
" Yes," and it was over, and I left at 8 P. M. for Calais. 
Not a complete version of the conversation, as we know, 
but sufficient, and the tragedy was begun. 

The dreary tale of the next twelve months must be told 
briefly. Gordon did go to Khartoum, and there soon 
changed his mind with the impulsiveness which was 
characteristic of him regarding the whole purpose of his 
mission. Instead of proceeding with the evacuation he 
decided to stay and crush El Mahdi. On his way to 
Cairo he had written, u The Soudan is a useless posses- 
sion ; ever was and ever will be so. I.think Her Majesty's 
government are fully justified in recommending the 
evacuation, inasmuch as the sacrifices necessary towards 
securing a good government would be far too onerous to 



298 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

admit of any such attempt being made. Indeed, one 
may say it is impracticable at any cost. Her Majesty's 
government will now leave them as God has placed them." 
Before the end of February he had abandoned this in 
favor of British suzerainty. In March he was enthu- 
siastically preparing to " smash up the Mahdi." By May 
he was shut up in Khartoum, and the cabinet in London 
was considering a relief expedition. 

Early in April it was seen that this might be neces- 
sary, but many of those who had watched the matter 
from the beginning were still unconvinced that Gordon 
could not leave Khartoum — a matter in which there 
was radical difference of opinion. Indeed there is little 
doubt that he could have brought his whole garrison safely 
back to Egypt early in the year if he had not changed his 
purpose from evacuation to attack. Six or eight years 
earlier his prestige in the Soudan had been immense; it 
had enabled him then to work miracles against the forces 
of disorder; but he did not realize how helpless he or 
any one else might be when pitted against the wild fighters 
of the Soudan and the equatorial provinces united and 
maddened by the fierce enthusiasm of a holy war. If 
escape from Khartoum might have been effected in March, 
the gate was certainly closed by June and by the end of 
that month there was no hope except through the relief 



THE ROAD TO THE EAST 299 

force. But this was a matter of immense difficulty, un- 
anticipated and unprovided for. Gladstone was blamed 
by the English people for slowness, but all our admira- 
tion of Gordon's heroism should not blind us to the fact 
that he had done precisely what he had been told not to 
do, and that the whole terrible situation of the summer 
of 1884 was something of which the British premier and 
his advisers had never dreamed. 

Much time was spent during the early summer in the 
consideration of the best route to Khartoum — a matter 
in which there was radical difference of opinion among 
the men who knew most about it. The Nile route was 
decided on finally at the end of July. Wolseley was at 
Cairo ready to start on the ninth of September and at 
Wady Haifa on the fifth of October. And then came 
the slow, heart-breaking task of ascending the cataracts, 
sweeps of rapids and falls seamed with rocks, where the 
boats had to be pulled up by ropes for mile on mile 
against the fierce current, guided by Canadian voyageurs. 1 
Early in December the relief force reached the bend of 
the Nile beyond Dongola, where it sweeps down in a 
great elbow from Abu Hamed before flowing northward 

1 The fourth cataract, between Dongola and Abu Hamed, drops one 
hundred and sixty feet in sixty-eight miles ; the fifth, between Abu Hamed 
and Berber, two hundred feet in one hundred miles. 



3 oo IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

again toward the sea. To continue the climb up the 
fourth cataract to Abu Hamed and then toil on through 
the fifth to Berber and the sixth to Khartoum was prac- 
tically to throw away all chance of success. So at Korti 
a flying column was formed to speed across the desert 
and strike the Nile again at Metemmeh, a little below the 
doomed city. A swift march, broken by fierce fighting, 
brought the little army to the point where four steamers 
sent by Gordon awaited them, and on January 24 two of 
them, with twenty-six British soldiers and two hundred 
and forty faithful Soudanese on board, set out up the 
river to reconnoiter. On the 28th, as they sighted Om- 
durman they heard an occasional shout from the bank 
telling them that Khartoum was fallen and Gordon dead. 
But not until they forced their way nearer and under 
heavy fire anxiously swept the city with their telescopes 
searching in vain for the Government house and the 
flag that had waved there so many weary months, did the 
grief-stricken men who had tried so hard to save Gor- 
don realize that their long struggle had been in vain. 
They at least had done their best, and had done it nobly. 
But they were just three days too late. 

So El Mahdi's empire swept unchecked up to Wady 
Haifa, and his triumphant followers carried their spears 
and their war-cry to the very gates of defeated Egypt, 



THE ROAD TO THE EAST 30 1 

while far-away England mourned her hero and looked 
bitterly up the valley of the Nile into the savage dark- 
ness of the Soudan. Year after year passed and as the 
wild neighborhood of the dervishes became more and 
more insupportable the old law that forbids a perma- 
nently stationary line between civilization and savagery 
came slowly into operation. Bit by bit the steel road 
crept south, bit by bit Egypt hurled the raids from the 
Soudan farther back, until at last Kitchener stood vic- 
torious on the field of Omdurman, the Union Jack waved 
over Gordon's grave, and Gordon's own dream of a 
crushed IViahdi and a restored British rule in the Soudan 
was fulfilled. 

Nothing could have been less planned by England than 
the occupation of Egypt and the conquest of the Soudan. 
The greatest of anti-imperialistic British statesmen pre- 
sided over the councils of Britain when the order was 
issued to bombard Alexandria. The event that led to the 
conquest of the Soudan was the mission of Gordon for its 
evacuation. The defense of Egypt is rendered necessary 
only by the enormous importance of that which is com- 
manded by the citadel of Cairo — the Suez Canal, built 
by Frenchmen. The canal is important because it leads 
to the East, and the East means Australia — casually dis- 
covered and casually colonized, and India — conquered 



3 o2 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

by a trading company in defiance of orders. Nothing 
less like a coherent, well-planned whole could be imagined. 
Every stone in the structure seems an accident. 

Yet looking at it now we see no ill-ordered confusion, 
but a great and peaceful empire in which each part fills 
its place as if a master-builder had put it there. And one 
may at last see that the result is no accident at all. For 
if it is true that each link in the chain was unplanned, 
and if it is true that the intervention of 1 88 1-2 brought 
unlooked-for results, it is also true that England accepted 
those results without weakness, took over the new re- 
sponsibilities without dismay, and settled down to the 
task forced on her, — the regeneration first of Egypt and 
then of the Soudan. Gladstone's anxious foreboding has 
become a fact. But it is a fact no longer viewed with 
gloom but with the satisfaction of a laborer in work 
well done. 



XIII 

IMPERIAL PROBLEMS: THE CASE OF IRELAND 

Imperialism is no longer a policy. It is a fact. But 
it is a fact of such recent realization that its problems 
are by no means all settled, and some of them are suffi- 
ciently perplexing. The question of imperial coordina- 
tion and administration has hardly even been faced. 
The danger of conflict with other expanding powers is a 
constant one, is indeed one of the elements in the present 
war; it has been frequently averted by treaties or arrange- 
ments more or less temporary in character as difficulties 
have arisen, but it is a real and terrible menace.- The 
moral danger of arrogance is perhaps less acute than it 
was a generation or so since, grave as it still seems to 
many thoughtful minds. But the most specific and in- 
sistent problem of empire is no doubt the tangible and 
ever-varying problem of the treatment of alien peoples 
who in one way or another come within the " sphere of 
influence " of the expanding power. 

England had to face this in a practical way long be- 
fore she was capable of any lofty or altruistic conception 

303 



30 4 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

of imperial responsibility, for she had to adjust her na- 
tional existence to that of three other peoples within the 
British Isles, — the Welsh, the Scottish and the Irish. 
All hated the conquering Saxon. All were separated 
from their neighbors by fundamental differences in tem- 
perament and traditions. All carried on bitter war 
against the English for many centuries. Yet finally all 
were united in the present partnership of the four peoples. 
The union has been hardly an unqualified success, but 
still it does in its own way represent a real triumph in 
adjustment and conciliation. While the Welsh and the 
Scots would indignantly repudiate the name of English- 
men, they have permanently buried the hatchet; retaining 
all of their pride of race, they yet regard the English with 
some condescension, perhaps, but with a thoroughgoing 
and often intense friendliness. With the Irish it has been 
otherwise. Bitterly resenting the fact that their union 
with Great Britain was the result of armed conquest, 
having no soothing memories of a Banndckburn, of 
Stuart and Tudor kings, they have never been quite will- 
ing to let bygones be bygones. No other part of the 
British Empire offers difficulties quite so perplexing as the 
ever-present problem of Ireland. For she is at once a 
conquered province and an equal partner. And the fact 
does not obliterate the memory. 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 305 

There are three clearly marked methods of dealing 
with an alien and conquered race. One is absolute and 
complete repression, including the annihilation, so far as 
possible, of native language and laws; one is admission 
to equality with the rulers; and one is a compromise, the 
conquerors retaining the administration of laws and gov- 
ernment but leaving the conquered their language and 
their local customs, perhaps even associating them with 
the government in a subordinate or advisory way. Brit- 
ain has used all of these methods in the past. At present 
her policy is to abandon the method of repression and to 
aim at the immediate or ultimate free equality of all citi- 
zens of the empire. And the curious result is that this 
policy of freedom has brought the empire face to face 
with a problem as difficult as it is inevitable, a problem 
still unsolved in at least two portions of the British do- 
minions. 

For in administration of any kind, political, industrial, 
educational or domestic, autocracy is infinitely simpler 
than democracy, repression than freedom. A little lib- 
erty is as dangerous as a little learning and is just as apt 
to intoxicate the brain. Our anarchist brethren would 
continue the quotation and remind us that if shallow 
draughts intoxicate, drinking largely will sober us again; 
that complete liberty like broad learning is the best cor- 



3 o6 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

rective alike of erratic action and unbalanced thought. 
But the world has hitherto not thought it wise to try the 
experiment, and Rousseau's free child of nature is still 
a shadowy creature of the radical pamphleteer and the 
soap-box orator rather than of practical life. We reject 
Prussianism but we equally reject anarchism. We be- 
lieve in democracy, and on the whole it justifies our faith. 
But it is futile to pretend that democracy and empire make 
an easy team to handle. Autocracy solves the problem 
by the crude method of force. Anarchism would solve 
it by ignoring it. We have chosen the difficult task of 
compromise, of clinging to both liberty and law. 

So that, rightly or wrongly, our western democracies 
combine much restraint with much liberty, and the policy 
of America, Britain and France in their ordinary gov- 
ernment is in this regard the policy of the British Empire. 
The average American or Englishman enjoys the liberty 
and is hardly aware of the restraint. He is living in his 
normal world, and he has grown so accustomed to its 
restrictions that he tends to forget their existence or to 
extol them as standing for " law and order." But it 
is not long since Americans were appalled at the thought 
that they might be forced into a conquest of Mexico, and 
all the waving of the flag, all the impassioned periods of 
editors and orators could not remove the weight of the 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 307 

burden that seemed imminent, — not the burden of con- 
quest but the burden of rule. For they realized, if 
vaguely, that not the gift of all that means liberty to the 
citizen of Massachusetts or of Iowa would atone to the 
Mexican for the things, unappreciated by Americans, that 
he would lose by annexation to the United States. If 
President, Congress and local authorities were all rein- 
carnations of Jefferson and Lincoln they would yet be 
" Gringos," and their benevolent rule would be seen as 
a hateful tyranny. 

This imagined case of Mexico is perhaps extreme. 
But it may help us to appreciate in a measure the cases 
of Quebec and Ireland. Of Quebec we have already 
spoken. This French province of Canada, in which lan- 
guage, laws and customs were left untouched, in which a 
freedom of speech and action unknown under the govern- 
ment of Louis XIV or of Louis XV became a common- 
place under the British flag, in which the coming of rep- 
resentative government included Canadians of French 
and British descent on absolutely equal terms, is yet a 
center of restless disaffection. When all Canada seethed 
with eager loyalty to the empire at the opening of the 
Great War, Quebec stood aloof and complained that 
those of her children who had moved to the Ontario side 
of the Ottawa River were compelled by the Ontario 



c 



08 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 



school regulations to learn English. When Belgium was 
overwhelmed by the German Fury, when northeastern 
France was devastated, when western liberty stood at 
before the relentless onset of the Prussian legions, 
the orators and newspapers of French Canada hotly de- 
clared that they cared for none of these things if Ontario 
was to be permitted to make English the exclusive lan- 
guage 01 Ontario schools. The phenomenon is unintel- 
ligible to the rest of Canada, an enigma to the world. 
Yet the failure of Prussian methods of repression in 
Alsace-Lorraine and in Poland should make us hesitate to 
condemn the more magnanimous policy of Britain. It is 
true that here the gift of free speech and oi self-govern- 
ment would seem to have failed. Nor do we venture in 
academic arrogance to suggest a remedv. We are simply 
stating the facts and the problem. 

The problem of Ireland is only more acute than that of 
Quebec because of the geographical nearness of Ireland 
to Great Britain and because of the world-wide fame of 
the Irish race. Politically, Ireland has been a source of 
distress and boundless worry; yet the English, like the 
rest of the world, bow in an enthusiasm that they do not 
try to modify or conceal before the radiant genius of 
Irish people. If the English despised them, hated 
them, were indifferent to them, the problem would be 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 309 

less acute. If the Irish were less active, less virile, less 
compelling, they could be ignored or disciplined. But 
they cannot be ignored and they cannot be disciplined. 
Ireland is like a brilliant, mercurial, passionate and lov- 
able convalescent, her temper soured by pain and un- 
soothed by sympathy, uncertain as to what she wants, un- 
willing to seem grateful for favors because she views 
favors as rights, sure only of her discontent and intent 
only on assuring her legal guardian of undying enmity. 
The case is a peculiarly instructive one and is worth some 
examination. Few histories are more tragic; none have 
a more direct bearing on the problems of to-day. 

Ireland, never a province of Rome, never touched by 
the Germanic invasions until the Danish inroads of the 
ninth century and never really conquered even by the 
Danes, never organized on an imperial or feudal basis, 
was up to the year 1171 politically outside the European 
system. A land of patriarchal democracy, peopled by 
a loose aggregation of clans, a nation but hardly a state, 
famous for her craftsmen and her saints, her minstrels 
and her scholars, she tempted the cupidity of a too pow- 
erful neighbor. In an age when might was right the 
w r orld over and justice the interest of the stronger, Ireland 
was attacked and superficially conquered by the Norman- 
Angevin rulers who had conquered England herself a 



310 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

century before. The invasion and subjugation of Ire- 
land by the Earl of Pembroke and Henry II was on the 
same level of justice as the conquest of England by Duke 
William. But it involved a much more fundamental 
change in the social and political life of the conquered 
people. For the Norman conquest of Ireland meant the 
establishment of feudalism and personal rule in place of 
the old clan system with its tribal land tenure, a change 
far deeper than the mere assertion of dominion and felt 
as an insult by every tenant and every chief in Ireland. 
In England, Saxons, Normans and Angevins were grad- 
ually assimilated into one people, not without some bit- 
terness indeed but without any permanent ill result. In 
Ireland there were some then and later who made their 
peace with the conquerors, but the greater part of the 
people yielded only to force, and yielded with a watchful 
and sullen eye to future rebellion. From the twelfth 
century to the nineteenth the history of Ireland is a his- 
tory of repression and revolt. 

It is difficult to think of a parallel case. It is true that 
there have been other conquests that have involved almost 
or quite as fundamental a conflict. War always means 
suffering, and defeat always means bitterness, but most 
conquered peoples have in time forgotten their scars and 
adapted themselves to the situation, Indeed, a long pe- 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 311 

riod of friction, resentment and non-adjustment is a rare 
phenomenon in history. So rare that every student of 
Irish history is tempted to make the same comment, — 
that the curse of Ireland lay in the fact that she was 
neither conquered nor unconquered, neither subject nor 
free. The English influence was always there, a per- 
petual insult and a perpetual challenge, but it was never 
absolutely dominant, — not, at any rate, until the mis- 
chief was done — and it was always repressive. The 
rising of a chieftain or of a group of chieftains would 
be put down by armed force and would be accompanied 
and followed by devastation and suffering. But it was 
ever a case of the mailed fist and nothing else; the restive 
victim was struck down, punished, and then left alone; 
there was never any attempt at permanent organization, 
at intelligent or sympathetic government. Ireland un- 
conquered might have worked out her own salvation ; Ire- 
land conquered might have become an Anglo-Irish domin- 
ion in which the strength and virtues of both peoples 
might have been merged as they and other peoples are 
merged now in the colonies and the United States; 1 but 
Ireland half-conquered meant perpetual irritation, per- 
petual conflict, perpetual antagonism between alien and 
native. The Normans and English who were given 

1 This is brilliantly questioned by Mrs. J. R. Green, " Irish Nationality." 



3 i2 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

lands in Ireland aided not a whit in assimilation. For 
some remained alien, holding their lands by force, viewed 
by the Irish as intruders, and some became adjusted to 
their new environment and gradually became themselves 
Irish — like the Fitzpatricks, the Fitzgeralds and the 
Burkes. 

The Reformation of the sixteenth century made a bad 
situation infinitely worse. Ireland remained faithful to 
the Roman Catholic communion. England became pre- 
dominantly Protestant. So that when the generals of 
Queen Elizabeth really did complete at last the subjuga- 
tion of the island religious persecution was added to the 
bitter antagonism of four centuries. Moreover Catholic 
and discontented Ireland became a menace, a possible ally 
of Spain, a weak point in British defense against attack, 
to be chained, weakened, paralyzed in every possible way. 
James I tried the method of plantation somewhat as Im- 
perial Germany has tried it in the Polish provinces of 
Prussia and with much the same measure of success. A 
section of Ulster was colonized with English and Scotch 
settlers, and in some respects the colony did become what 
it was intended to become, a little new Britain, a strong- 
hold of loyalty and of Protestantism planted in the midst 
of a bitterly resentful native population. But the evil 
was increased, not diminished, by the plantation of Ulster. 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 313 

In the civil wars the Ulstermen fought for Cromwell and 
King William while the Irish stood by the Stuarts and 
shared in their ruin. With the battle of the Boyne 
( 1690) and the surrender of Limerick the doom of Ire- 
land was sealed. There was indeed a furious insurrec- 
tion in 1798 and there have been the Fenian risings of 
1867 and the Sinn Fein outburst of 1916, but these were 
hopeless from the outset. To all intents and purposes 
Ireland was definitely a conquered province at the end of 
the seventeenth century. And in the conquest, extending 
over six centuries, one is at a loss to think of any blunder 
or of any crime that the conquerors had failed to commit. 
But if we have to account for Ireland's present ills 
quite largely by the evil record that begins with Pem- 
broke's invasion of 1171 and ends with the Treaty of 
Limerick we can not, unfortunately, draw a line at 1691. 
The conquest was no doubt completed. But the Treaty, 
containing at least some promise of fair treatment, was 
set aside as unauthorized. The policy of persecution 
and relentless oppression continued without intermission 
during the eighteenth century. The Irish became " hew- 
ers of wood and drawers of water " for their conquerors. 
They were held down by what an English historian has 
called " the most terrible legal tyranny under which a 
nation has ever groaned." Everything that ignorance, 



3 i 4 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

indifference, contempt and intolerance could devise was 
done to keep Ireland's wounds open and bleeding. Leg- 
islative autonomy was conceded, indeed, in 1782, when 
England was fighting a losing battle with France, Spain 
and America and could ill afford to spend any strength in 
misgoverning Ireland; from 1782 to 1801 there was a 
relatively free Irish Parliament in Dublin ; but bribery and 
false promises ended Home Rule in 1801, and the nine- 
teenth century opened with the ills of Ireland apparently 
as far from settlement as ever. 

These ills may be summed up in a paragraph. One 
was religious, and was a grievance shared by the Catho- 
lics of England. By the existing laws no Roman Catho- 
lic could enter the House of Commons, could hold public 
office, could serve on a jury, could enter a university or 
could plead at the bar. No Catholic could buy land or 
bequeath it by will. And to make the religious disabil- 
ities more exasperating, Catholic and Protestant dissent- 
ers alike were forced to pay tithes for the maintenance of 
an established church that commanded the loyalty of an 
insignificant minority of the Irish people. Secondly, there 
was the ever present land question. The land was almost 
all held by absentee landlords. Rents were heavy and 
were raised at the slightest appearance of increased value, 
so that all inducement to improve land or dwellings was 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 315 

taken away. Evictions were apt to be enforced at a day's 
notice, either for non-payment of rent or because the land- 
lord .might wish to open an area of land for pasture. 
Hardly any farms were held in proprietorship, so that 
the vast majority of the people — forced into agriculture 
by the jealous crushing out of Irish industry — were at 
the mercy of the landowners, few of whom lived on their 
land or cared a jot about anything in Ireland but their 
rents. Thirdly, there was the intangible but powerful 
sentiment of nationality. In spite of ages of brutal re- 
pression the Irish loved their country and longed for lib- 
eration from the blind misrule of England. 

Yet two things are to be remembered: first, that not all 
the Englishmen who crossed the Irish Sea were tyrants, 
and second, that the Irish, gifted as they were with an 
often irrepressible good-nature and lightness of heart, 
did not all or always hate the English. Many of the 
ruling race learned to love and admire the sons of Erin. 
Many of the Irish went boldly over to England and won 
fame and fortune among their oppressors without any 
sacrifice of principle, — men like Edmund Burke and 
Oliver Goldsmith. Thousands of Irishmen entered the 
British army and fought gallantly and loyally under the 
flag that bore the crosses of St. George, St. Andrew and 
St. Patrick. For half unconsciously they saw that the 



3 i6 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

tyranny that was crushing Ireland was the tyranny of a 
small class, and was quite largely a tyranny of insular 
prejudice, of unthinking ignorance, rather than of wan- 
ton malice or cruelty. A betterment of the whole sit- 
uation would become possible when the English should 
themselves become free and should awaken to a wider 
outlook, a deeper and fuller humanity. 

We have already noted the beginning of the change in 
English public life in the twenties of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. Nothing in the history of the last hundred and 
fifty years is more enthralling than the study of the slow 
breaking down of the old artificial narrowness of the Eng- 
lish " upper classes," the gradual and steady appearance 
of a new idealism, a noble if still conservative spiritual 
life. It had already found expression in the religious 
revival led by the Wesleys, in the self-sacrificing work of 
Howard and Wilberforce, in the stern realism of Ho- 
garth, in the lofty poetry of Wordsworth, and in the pas- 
sionate songs of Keats and Sruelley before it began to un- 
dermine the firmly based power of the ruling oligarchy. 
But after 1822 the walls of Toryism began to crumble. 
Unconquerable by forces from without, they were moved 
and shaken by the resistless power of an awakening 
people, as a mighty tower may be riven by the roots and 
stem of a slow-growing oak. 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 317 

At this critical moment Ireland found her leader. 
Much had been done in paving the way, in removing 
prejudice and in awakening a half-unwilling sympathy, by 
the personality and oratory of Henry Grattan. The 
foremost figure of the Dublin Parliament before the 
Union, an unswerving advocate of Catholic emancipation, 
Grattan died in 1820 and was buried in Westminster 
Abbey. But even Grattan would have found the leader- 
ship in the final campaign for emancipation too tremen- 
dous a task, and it was well for Ireland that a leader now 
arose who precisely fitted the occasion. Daniel O'Con- 
nell, unlike Grattan, was a Catholic. He studied in Bel- 
gium and France, adopted the legal profession, practiced 
it so far as the laws would permit, and early became a 
member of a society organized to promote the cause of 
liberation. His marvelous gifts of popular oratory soon 
brought him to the front, and the two causes that he ad- 
vocated were never again to be forgotten or ignored in 
either Ireland or England until victory was finally 
achieved, — Catholic Emancipation and the repeal of the 
Union. 

Only the former did O'Connell live to see, and it was 
brought about wholly by his own genius for leadership. 
In a series of great meetings he had aroused and unified 
Irish enthusiasm, keeping absolutely within the limits of 



318 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

the law, until the very force of his own personality as the 
leader of a united people began to shake the stubborn re- 
solve of his opponents. Then at the psychological mo- 
ment he took action. He offered himself as candidate 
for the county of Clare, was elected, presented himself 
at the House of Commons, refused to take the prescribed 
oath, and was ordered to withdraw. The election was 
annulled and the seat declared vacant. But once more 
he stood for the seat, once more he was elected, and the 
government realized that a force had arisen in Ireland, 
backed by a strong and growing English public opinion, 
which could be crushed only by civil war. The two men 
at the head of the administration, conservative as they 
were, were neither unintelligent nor unrighteous, and the 
surrender of Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington 
marked the end of the battle. The laws against Roman 
Catholics were repealed (1829) as were also the similar 
laws that had been directed against Protestant dissenters. 
And the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland two 
generations later ended the religious oppression that had 
so sorely tested the faith of the Irish people for two 
hundred years. 

There remained the land question and the demand for 
Home Rule. On both of these the fight was long and 
bitter. The evils were manifest. But the settlement of 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 319 

the land question involved the hostility of the whole 
landed interest of the two islands, and the movement for 
Home Rule was attacked as a menace to the unity of the 
empire and the safety of England. Moreover the Prot- 
estants of Ulster set their face steadily against the re- 
peal of the Union on the ground that in an Irish Parlia- 
ment they — the wealthiest and most prosperous portion 
of the Irish people — would be left helpless, subject to 
the tyranny of a hostile and revengeful majority. Yet 
both movements went on, and thoughtful people in Eng- 
land realized increasingly that no arguments could be 
valid that tended to perpetuate the misery and resentment 
of a whole people. Outbreaks, riots, outrages, execu- 
tions did harm in exciting fiercer passions, did good in 
driving home to the English the profound evil of the situ- 
ation. In tens of thousands the Irish migrated to the 
United States and the colonies. And at last in the decade 
of the sixties the most brilliant and popular English states- 
man of the nineteenth century resolved to try the experi- 
ment of facing the Irish question from the Irish point of 
view, of legislating in the interests of the Irish as a whole 
rather than in the interests of a small class or of England. 
Gladstone's first achievement in his new adventure was 
the disestablishment of the Irish Church, the last relic of 
religious oppression. Then he turned to the land ques- 



3 2o IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

tion. The demands of the Irish had been formulated in 
the " three F's " of the Tenant-Right League, — fair rent, 
fixity of tenure, and free sale. Such a slogan seemed even 
to Gladstone incompatible with the rights of property, 
but at the same time the Irish Land Act of 1870 did try 
to face the issue. It encouraged long leases, recognized 
the principle of " fair rent " by government valuation, 
gave the tenant the right to claim compensation for evic- 
tion, and opened the way to free purchase and sale by 
offering to advance to a tenant two-thirds of the purchase 
money to be repaid at the rate of five per cent, per annum 
spread over thirty-five years. This was not final, but it 
was a fair start towards the creation of a peasant pro- 
prietary. Its weakness lay in the permission given the 
landlords to evade the Act by " free contract " with the 
tenant and its vagueness as regards fair rent. 

It was not to be expected that this first attempt to settle 
the land question would work. As a matter of fact it 
failed utterly. Poverty, famine, evictions and emigration 
marked the seventies as they had the sixties. In 1879 the 
Land League was formed with Charles Stewart Parnell as 
its first President and Michael Davitt as its chief agitator. 
And in 1881 Gladstone brought in a second Land Bill, 
recognizing definitely the " three F's " and making a 
bolder effort both to fix rents and to facilitate purchase. 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 321 

From 1 88 1 to Wyndham's Land Purchase Act of 1903 a 
series of measures, each seeking patiently to remedy the 
faults of its predecessors, have gradually eliminated the 
land grievance from Irish politics. The result was thus 
stated by the late John Redmond in a speech in Detroit 
in 19 10: " I desire to put before you, in plain business- 
like language, what the last ten years have accomplished 
for Ireland. . . . Over one-half of Ireland the tillers of 
the soil are absolute owners. In a few short years the 
whole of the land of Ireland will be free once and forever 
of landlordism. ... A few short years, and the land 
question in Ireland, that fruitful source of poverty, starv- 
ation, misery, bloodshed, and crime, will have absolutely 
passed away. And with the passing away of that system, 
will have passed the chief cause which kept the Irish peo- 
ple, not only poverty-stricken, but enslaved." 

There remained the question of Home Rule. From 
one point of view there was no more reason for an Irish 
agitation for Home Rule than for a similar agitation in 
Scotland or Wales. When Gladstone brought in his 
Home Rule Bill in 1886 the British government repre- 
sented four partners, England, Ireland, Scotland and 
Wales, as it does still ( May, 1 9 1 8 ) . None of these have 
Home Rule. All are governed by the united Parliament 
meeting at Westminster. So that the difference between 



322 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Canada, for instance, and Ireland is not that Canada is 
free and Ireland oppressed, but that Canada governs her- 
self without representation in the council of the empire 
while Ireland is a member of the Imperial Parliament, 
the second member, moreover, with 103 members to Scot- 
land's 72. The only sense in which it can be said that 
Ireland is governed by England is the sense in which the 
Bronx may be said to be governed by Manhattan; for nat- 
urally the English members, representing thirty-five mil- 
lions, can outvote the Irish members, representing less 
than five millions. As a matter of fact, however, this 
disparity of numbers is usually nullified. The English 
members never by any chance vote en hloc; they are split 
normally into two approximately ea^al parties, so that 
the Irish Nationalists have a power in the House far be- 
yond their actual voting strength in the United Kingdom. 
They have frequently held the balance, and have deter- 
mined the continuance or the fall of a government. 

To speak of Ireland as subject to the hated Saxon rule, 
to imagine her in chains, is then hardly consistent with the 
truth. As a matter of fact it is Scotland, not Ireland, 
that has a grievance. Ireland, with a smaller population 
than Scotland, is represented by 103 members to Scot- 
land's 72, and the Scottish taxpayers have joined with the 
English to help the Irish peasants purchase their land. 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 323 

'0 

So that some of the Scots have complained, not without 
reason, that Ireland is now a spoiled child rather than an 
oppressed victim, a complaint that was given new force 
when a Parliament in which the Irish held the balance of 
power applied conscription to England, Scotland and 
Wales, leaving Ireland exempt. Yet the fact remains 
that Ireland has a basis for her never ceasing cry for 
autonomy in the simple fact that she wants it. It is the 
firm belief of Irishmen that England and Scotland do not 
understand Ireland, do not look at things from her angle, 
cannot adequately deal with her affairs. It is true that 
since England revised her ancient policy, abandoned 
methods of repression and tried with awakened con- 
science and real earnestness to study Irish needs, much 
has been done to atone for the past and to advance the 
prosperity of the smaller island. It is true that terrible 
as were the wrongs that the older England inflicted on 
Ireland, yet the present generation of Englishmen are 
only too anxious to join hands with their Irish brethren 
and to give Connaught as just a government as Yorkshire. 
The complaints of English tyranny sound now like bursts 
of ill temper, twenty to forty years out of date. But the 
trouble is that Ireland cannot forget the past. She feels 
sensitive and uneasy in her union with her mighty partner, 
friendly now indeed but bearing a name of terror, a name 



3 2 4 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

hated so long by Irishmen that suspicion still overpowers 
confidence. She wants Home Rule. 

Since Gladstone first committed himself to the repeal 
of the Union the cause on which he shipwrecked his party 
has steadily gained ground. Under the leadership of 
Charles Stewart Parnell, of Justin McCarthy, of John 
Redmond and their lieutenants the Nationalists have never 
allowed Britain for a moment to forget the existence and 
claims of Ireland. They might speak and vote on other 
topics, but they have never drifted far from the main 
issue. They might welcome the land acts, the local gov- 
ernment act, the measures taken for the protection and 
encouragement of Irish industries, but even these never 
drew their eyes from the goal on which they had set their 
hearts. Throughout the years of debate their opponents 
rested their case on three fundamental arguments: Irish 
autonomy meant dismemberment of the empire, meant 
delivering over Ireland to a people openly hostile to Eng- 
land, and meant the sacrifice of Ulster. The first has 
been met by the statement that the British Empire is based 
on a harmony of friendly and contented self-governing 
nations under a common flag, not on centralization, and 
that the loyalty of the great colonies has made the dis- 
memberment argument an empty anachronism. The sec- 
ond is answered by the statement that Ireland's hostility 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 325 

survives only because Home Rule is denied her, that 
Canada too was restive and discontented until she was 
given autonomy, and that the surest way to win and hold 
Irish good-will is to allow her to manage her own affairs. 
The third is not so easily answered, and during the last 
ten years if has been far and away the most formidable 
barrier in the way of a peaceful end to the controversy. 
In April, 19 12, Mr. Asquith introduced a Government 
of Ireland Bill giving Ireland a Parliament at Dublin, re- 
sponsible government (i. e. an executive on the English 
model, responsible to the Irish Parliament, not to the 
Crown) and at the same time continued representation 
at Westminster. That is to say, Ireland would not only 
receive Home Rule in the Canadian and Australian sense 
but would retain what Canada and Australia do not pos- 
sess, a partnership in the government of the British Em- 
pire. The Bill aroused fierce resentment in Ulster, 1 and 
the controversy surpassed in fury anything that Parlia- 
ment had seen since the Repeal of the Corn Laws, cer- 

1 We quote just two sentences from a solemn appeal adopted by the 
Belfast Chamber of Commerce: "We can imagine no conceivable rea- 
son — no fault that we have committed — which could justify the treat- 
ment which this Bill prepares for us. We are to be driven out of our 
present close connection with England and Scotland; we are to be de- 
prived of the power to control our own future; and we are to be handed 
over to the government and guidance of men of whose principles we dis- 
approve and whose capacity has never been applied towards the practical 
advancement of the material interests of the country." 



326 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

tainly since the Gladstone-Disraeli debates of the sixties 
and seventies. The Unionists of the north, inspired and 
led by Sir Edward Carson, bound themselves by a solemn 
covenant never to submit to an Irish Parliament and even 
organized a volunteer army. Civil war seemed immi- 
nent. 1 Even the wisest statesmen of Britain were in 
doubt as to the best course of action, and when it seemed 
possible that the threatening measures of the Ulster vol- 
unteers might have to be met by an armed force some of 
the ablest officers of the army tendered their resignations. 
Suggestions were made for the exclusion of the north from 
the operation of the Bill for at least a limited period, but 
it was so difficult to find an acceptable compromise that 
the debate raged in Parliament and throughout the two 
islands with little respite for two years. Then came the 
outbreak of the Great War. Controversy was suddenly 
stilled. Nationalists and Ulstermen alike put aside their 
quarrel in an unprecedented burst of loyalty and enthusi- 
asm for the common cause. The Bill was passed and 
became law in September, 19 14, while at the same time 
it was temporarily suspended until its details could be 
agreed upon. 

1 A book issued in 1913 by Mr. Pembroke Wicks ("The Truth about 
Home Rule") with an approving introduction by Sir Edward Carson, 
closed with these ominous words: "If the Bill is persisted in, two things 
will be certain. There will be civil war in Ulster and an end to public 
confidence, security and credit throughout the rest of Ireland." 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 327 

It was hoped in 19 14 that the war would be a brief 
one. As this hope faded away the fiercer of the Nation- 
alists began to agitate for the fulfillment of the promise 
conveyed in the Act. And to complicate matters a so- 
ciety named Sinn Fein (" ourselves alone "), whose lead- 
ers had long been the earnest and enthusiastic apostles of 
an Irish revival — literary, linguistic, legal, artistic and 
political — proclaimed a new ideal, no longer Home Rule 
but Irish independence. 

To a mere statesman or historian absolute Irish inde- 
pendence is, to speak quite frankly, a chimera, and most 
Irishmen — whatever their feelings towards England — 
have so recognized it. As Captain Mahan has pointed 
out, the national safety of England, Scotland and Wales 
forbids an independent Ireland even more imperatively 
than the national safety of the United States forbade an 
independent confederacy in the South; the five millions 
may demand from the forty millions justice, sympathy, 
even autonomy, but certainly not an independence which 
would be a perpetual menace to Great Britain. But the 
dream of Sinn Fein was far more than one of political 
independence. It desired the reestablishment of the Irish 
language, Irish law, Irish land tenure, the complete re- 
building, in short, of the Irish national life shattered long 
ago by the Norman and Tudor conquest, the uprooting of 



328 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

all that was foreign, the wiping out of eight centuries. 
Its finest spirits represented much that was noble in the 
Irish civilization, much that might be welcomed as one 
welcomes the revival of all the beauty and truth that is so 
often buried in the ruins of the past. But to the masses 
of the people Sinn Fein meant only the raising of the 
green flag, a blind crusade against the supremacy of Al- 
bion. And to many of both the friends and the enemies 
of Ireland the Sinn Fein movement seemed an ill-omened 
symptom of a restless and captious spirit that regarded 
the prospect of peace with disappointment and discontent, 
that loved agitation for its own sake, that adopted an 
impossible new ideal in a gleeful joy at the thought of 
renewed and perhaps never-ending friction. 

Whether this attitude was just or not, Sinn Fein cer- 
tainly introduced a new and difficult factor into the situ- 
ation. A conspiracy was formed by the society's wilder 
spirits to promote an Irish rising in alliance with Ger- 
many, and Sir Roger Casement was finally arrested on 
the charge of using German arms and German money to 
overthrow British rule. 1 His death on the gallows and 
the repression of a murderous rising in Dublin in May, 
19 1 6, apparently ended the matter for the moment. But 

1 See Gerard's " Four Years in Germany " for Casement's activities in 
Germany. 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 329 

the passions of many of the Irish were stirred by the exe- 
cution of the Sinn Fein leaders more directly concerned in 
the Dublin insurrection; a small group of enthusiasts 
became national martyrs; and in spite of the efforts of 
Mr. Redmond and his associates the whole settlement of 
the Irish question seemed threatened by a wave of anti- 
English agitation that swept through the unhappy island. 
Unreasoning, fanatic, hysterical and murderous, Sinn Fein 
succeeded for the time in discrediting Ireland before the 
world, in alienating sympathy, and in supporting the oft 
uttered sneer that what Ireland wanted was neither jus- 
tice nor Home Rule but a perpetual Donnybrook Fair. 

Something had to be done, however. England was 
committed by the Act of 19 14 to the principle of Home 
Rule, and yet the British government, straining every 
nerve in a life and death struggle on the continent, was 
confronted in Ireland by three parties, hostile, irrecon- 
cilable, and insistent. Dufferin's remark — "Ireland 
does not know what she wants and will not be happy until 
she gets it " — lost its humor in its grim fact. Ireland's 
best friends were helpless before the dissensions that 
made any single solution certain to bring a howl of wrath 
from two-thirds of the people concerned. In May, 19 17, 
the British Premier, David Lloyd-George, laid a pro- 
posal before Parliament for the settlement of the question 



330 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

by the Irish themselves. He suggested that a convention 
be summoned that would represent all sections of Irish 
opinion, that their discussions be secret, and that their 
final decisions be made the basis for an act of Parliament 
that should determine the future constitution of Ireland. 
The Convention duly met, and though the Sinn Feiners 
refused to send delegates on the ground that Irish inde- 
pendence was not to be open for discussion, yet the 89 
members probably represented the interests and views of 
the great majority of the Irish people. An able and rep- 
resentative non-partisan, Sir Horace Plunkett, widely hon- 
ored as the man who had probably done more than any 
one living for the upbuilding of Ireland's agricultural 
prosperity, was elected chairman, and for nearly a year 
the details of the whole problem were patiently consid- 
ered and debated. In April, 19 18, the Convention sub- 
mitted its report and adjourned. 

No one expected unanimity, nor was unanimity at- 
tained. But the resolutions reached gave a possible basis 
for a workable Irish government, and as these pages go 
to press Mr. Lloyd-George is preparing a new Home 
Rule Bill which may at last give rest to the ghosts of 
O'Connell and Parnell. The Convention has recom- 
mended the immediate creation of a bi-cameral Irish Par- 
liament, forty per cent, of the membership of the House 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 331 

of Commons to be guaranteed to the Unionists. Parlia- 
ment is to control the executive through a responsible min- 
istry and is to have power to legislate on all matters of 
purely Irish concern. Provisions are to be introduced 
that will protect the liberties of Ulster and of Protestants 
throughout the island, and Ireland is still to be repre- 
sented in the Imperial Parliament by forty-two mem- 
bers. 

Home Rule is at last to be given its trial — unless, per- 
chance, it should be shipwrecked on the rocks of Ulster, 
Sinn Fein, or some hidden shoal not yet charted. With 
the whole civilized world rocking in the most terrible 
tempest that has been seen since the fall of the Roman 
Empire, Ireland is to set forth on the perilous venture of 
self-government, perilous not because the Irish lack either 
political talent or patriotism, but because of bitter mem- 
ories and a partisanship peculiarly hot and uncompromis- 
ing. North and South, Protestant and Catholic, factory- 
worker and farmer, Celt and Saxon, the Irish must prove 
their love for Ireland by the unfamiliar virtues of charity, 
concession, and patience. And they must fashion and 
steer their new state with an anxious eye on the southern 
horizon, where what are left of 200,000 Irishmen fight 
shoulder to shoulder with Scots and English, French and 
Americans, against the deadly menace of the hordes of 



332 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Prussia. The new Ireland comes to its birth in a strange 
world, and old memories of hate and suffering may well 
be buried in the graves of Flanders and Picardy. 

In the story of the Empire the case of Ireland stands 
out with lurid distinctness as the one case in which the 
rulers of England tried to carry out the policy of repres- 
sion. It was an utter failure. If England had had the 
peculiar qualities of Prussia she might have succeeded in 
Anglicizing Ireland by force, but it may be doubted 
whether by any method such an end could have been at- 
tained without the practical extinction of the Irish people. 
At any rate England failed. Early in the nineteenth 
century came the dawn of a new era. England herself 
was changing, and the Emancipation Act of 1829 was the 
first sign that the old policy was doomed. The disestab- 
lishment of the Church of Ireland, the series of acts for 
the remedy of agrarian and industrial ills, finally the vic- 
torious movement for Home Rule, have tended to heal 
the one blot on the free empire of Britain. For Ireland 
is no longer an oppressed nation. Her ancient tyrants 
are in their graves. And England now gives and asks 
only friendship, cooperation, and a " square deal." The 
responsibility for their future rests with the Irish them- 
selves. 

The tale of Ireland is in many ways a tragic one, a 



THE CASE OF IRELAND 333 

tale of conquest, oppression, revolt and passion. And 
yet to close a study of Ireland with anxious reflections on 
partisanship and with any hint of foreboding is to empha- 
size the wrong thing. Partisanship and melancholy are 
strikingly characteristic of the Irish people, indeed, but no 
more so than a joyous heroism, a magnificent generosity 
that are to be paralleled only among their natural kindred, 
the French. Ireland is not Sinn Fein or Ulster, National- 
ist or Unionist. Ireland is simply Ireland, and we prefer 
to take the Irish of Gallipoli and of Neuve Chapelle 
rather than the Irish of the Dublin insurrection as those 
on whom the future of their country rests. 

" It is these soldiers of ours," said John Redmond, 1 
" it is these soldiers of ours, with their astonishing cour- 
age and their beautiful faith, with their natural military 
genius, with their tenderness as well as strength; carrying 
with them their green flags and their Irish war-pipes; ad- 
vancing to the charge, their fearless officers at their head, 
and followed by their beloved chaplains as great-hearted 
as themselves ; bringing with them a quality all their own 
to the sordid modern battlefield; exhibiting the character 
of the Irishman at its noblest and greatest — it is these 
soldiers of ours to whose keeping the Cause of Ireland 

1 In his introduction to Michael MacDonagh's " The Irish at the Front " 
— a book that tends to make an impartial attitude none too easy. 



334 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

has passed to-day. It was never in worthier, holier keep- 
ing than that of these boys, offering up their supreme 
sacrifice of life with a smile on their lips because it was 
for Ireland. May God bless them ! " 



XIV 

THE EFFECTS OF THE GREAT WAR UPON THE 

EMPIRE 

These homes, this valley spread below me here, 
The rooks, the tilted stacks, the beasts in pen, 
Have been the heartfelt things, past speaking dear 
To unknown generations of dead men, 

Who, century after century, held these farms 
And, looking out to watch the changing sky, 
Heard, as we hear, the rumors and alarms 
Of war at hand and danger pressing nigh. 

And knew, as we know, that the message meant 
The breaking off of ties, the loss of friends, 
Death, like a miser getting in his rent, 
And no new stones laid where the pathway ends. 

The harvest not yet won, the empty bin, 
The friendly horses taken from the stalls, 
The fallow from the hill not yet brought in, 
The cracks unplastered in the leaking walls. 

This poem, August, 1914, by John Masefield, appears in Mr. Masefield's 
Philip the King and Other Poems, copyright, 19 14, by the Macmillan Com- 
pany. It appears here by permission of the publishers. 

335 



33 6 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Yet heard the news, and went discouraged home, 
And brooded by the fire with heavy mind, 
With such dumb loving of the Berkshire loam 
As breaks the dumb hearts of the English kind, 

Then sadly rose and left the well loved Downs, 
And so by ship to sea, and knew no more 
The fields of home, the byres, the market towns, 
Nor the dear outline of the English shore, 

But knew the misery of the soaking trench, 
The freezing in the rigging, the despair 
In the revolting second of the wrench 
When the blind soul is flung upon the air, 

And died (uncouthly, most) in foreign lands 
For some idea but dimly understood 
Of an English city never built by hands, 
Which love of England prompted and made good. 

John Masefield. 

On his visit to Harvard University shortly before the 
Great War began, Rudolf Eucken, the leading German 
philosopher, made the statement that the British Empire 
was rotten to the core, that at the first touch India, Ire- 
land and South Africa would rise in rebellion and the 
whole edifice fall like a pack of cards ! These conclu- 
sions, he said, were based on the evidence of paid Ger- 
man agents who kept the Imperial German government 
informed as to the exact conditions existing in various 
parts of the world. The events of the past four years 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 337 

form an interesting commentary on the German power 
to estimate spiritual values and on the efficiency of a sys- 
tem of espionage, for to-day the British Empire, firm, 
united and grimly determined, seems likely to be a chief 
factor in the defeat of German autocracy. And never 
has there been a more splendid and dramatic justification 
of a generous, just government than is shown in the en- 
thusiasm and eagerness with which almost every part of 
the Empire has rallied to the Imperial cause. 

This response has been prompted partly by gratitude 
and affection, but even more by the justice of the cause, 
for Britain entered the war chiefly on moral grounds. 
Doubtless commercial jealousy, fear of German naval 
power and imperial rivalry influenced some of the people, 
but they were few in number. Britain en masse, espe- 
cially organized labor, could not have been carried whole- 
heartedly into the war, had it not been for the invasion 
of Belgium, which violated the traditional British love 
of justice and fair play. 

In the midst of the conflict, it is not the part of the 
historian to pass final judgments. All that can be done 
is to draw conclusions from the evidence at hand, with 
the thought ever in mind that new documents and the 
perspective of time may later modify, if not displace, 
them. 



338 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

While the larger part of the world believes that Ger- 
many has run amuck and become a menace to civilization, 
the Germans regard themselves as an essentially peace- 
loving people upon whom war has been forced by jealous, 
intriguing, decadent neighbors. From their point of view 
they are a chosen race, whose superior civilization (Kul- 
tur) entitles them to leadership and territorial expansion, 
but France and Russia hem them in, while Britain pre- 
vents their colonial development. They are convinced 
that an autocratic state, with a huge standing army, is 
necessary for protection and a great navy to assure them 
11 a place in the sun." Their point of view was expressed 
by Emperor William in a speech to his army soon after 
the war began: 

11 Remember you are the chosen people. The spirit 
of the Lord has descended upon me because I am the 
Emperor of the Germans. I am the instrument of the 
Almighty; I am his sword, his agent. Woe and death 
to all those who shall oppose my will. Woe and death 
to those who do not believe in my mission. Let them 
perish. God demands their destruction. " The Kaiser's 
favorite book, it may be added, is Machiavelli's 
" The Prince." 

Though the Germans insist that the war was forced 
upon them, nevertheless it is a significant fact that Ger- 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 339 

many and Austria have never published the correspond- 
ence that passed between them previous to the invasion 
of Servia. Moreover, a close study of the official state- 
ments issued by all the Powers involved has convinced 
the vast majority of American and neutral scholars that 
no diplomat could have struggled harder than did Sir 
Edward Grey to avert the conflict. All through the 
momentous days preceding August 4, 19 14, he constantly 
impressed upon the Powers involved the necessity for 
more negotiation and still more negotiation, the need for 
modifying ultimatums and of postponing mobilization. 

The latest (April, 19 18) and most convincing proof 
of German and Austrian guilt is the memorandum of 
Prince Lichnowsky, German ambassador to England in 
1 9 14. In this he declares positively that England had 
showed the " greatest good-will " in commercial matters, 
that she never would have gone to war over German 
naval development, that Sir Edward Grey was friendly 
to German colonial expansion, and that England con- 
sistently followed a peace policy while Germany con- 
sistently followed a war policy. " My London mission," 
concludes the document, " was wrecked not by the perfidy 
of the British but by the perfidy of our policy." 

.Having made a peaceful settlement by negotiation im- 
possible, Germany declared the treaty guaranteeing Bel- 
gian neutrality (to which she was herself a party) to be 



340 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

a " mere scrap of paper " and struck through that un- 
happy country in order to take the French on their un- 
protected frontier. The unexpected and heroic resistance 
of Belgium probably saved the allied cause, for the ten 
days' delay enabled France and England to make some 
degree of preparation to meet the oncoming tide of in- 
vasion. Fighting against desperate odds, short of am- 
munition and equipment, the defenders were slowly forced 
back to the Marne. There the brilliant strategy of Field 
Marshal Joffre and General Foch turned the tide and 
Paris was saved. 

Thus almost before she knew it Britain found herself 
engaged in a war with an empire the exact antithesis of 
herself in organization, policy and ideals. Save from 
a naval point of view she was utterly unprepared, has 
consequently had to " muddle through " as best she could, 
and has paid the price in costly mistakes. But her per- 
sistence and dogged determination have atoned in large 
measure for her blunders, and once under way her finan- 
cial, industrial and military contributions have been a 
vital factor in " carrying on " the allied cause. The old 
individualistic, unprepared Britain has suddenly become a 
highly efficient, unified state. This transformation has 
been due first to the energy and resourcefulness of three 
men, David Lloyd-George, Earl Kitchener and Lord 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 341 

Northcliffe, and then to the splendid cooperation of the 
women of England, to the leadership of her university 
and public school men, and to the self-sacrifice and in- 
telligence of British labor. 

Perhaps the most important of these factors has been 
the personality and ability of Mr. Lloyd-George. Unlike 
most British statesmen, he has sprung from the masses 
and is not a university man. Born in a Welsh village 
and brought up by an uncle — -the village cobbler — amidst 
poverty and hardship, he has never lost touch with and 
sympathy for the " inarticulate classes." Through the 
sacrifice of his uncle he was able to secure a legal educa- 
tion, went into politics, and was soon returned to Parlia- 
ment. He himself says that he has been greatly in- 
fluenced by Milton and Lincoln, and the similarity of his 
life and interests to those of Lincoln strikes the American 
reader at once. In Parliament his qualities soon asserted 
themselves and he quickly sprang into prominence as an 
opponent of the Boer War. His Celtic imagination made 
him a fiery orator, and his wit and repartee a dangerous 
opponent in debate. Add to these qualities resourceful- 
ness, marvelous powers of organization, a remarkable 
grasp of finance and a penchant ior social reform, to- 
gether with dash and persistence in the carrying out of 
his plans, and you have the most commanding figure in 



342 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

England. As Chancellor of the Exchequer under Mr. 
Asquith in 1909 he brought forth his famous budget, 
which placed the burden of taxation " on the broadest 
backs " and won for him the favor of the masses and the 
hatred of the classes. This was followed by the Old 
Age Pensions and State Insurance Acts which have done 
so much to alleviate the social misery of Britain and to 
establish the reputation of their author as a great adminis- 
trator. 

The daring innovator was just preparing to attack the 
land question when the war burst upon Europe and social 
legislation had to be abandoned in the death grapple 
that followed. Lloyd-George was soon made Minister 
of Munitions, and, having been granted wide powers by 
Parliament, he secured the cooperation of capital and 
labor by the following provisions : 1 ) compulsory arbi- 
tration of industrial disputes; 2) the keeping of skilled 
laborers out of the army; 3) the suspension of Trade 
Union regulations when they hampered production; 4) 
the elimination of excessive profits to employers. The 
results were almost immediate, and by 19 17 nineteen 
times as much ammunition for light guns and two hundred 
and twenty times as much for heavy guns was produced 
as at the beginning of the war. Industrial organization 
was fully developed along all lines, and to-day Great 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 343 

Britain is supplying herself and the Allies in quantities 
sufficient to meet the demands of the situation. 

Owing to a widespread conviction that unity of action 
could not be secured under a party government, a coalition 
ministry was formed with Mr. Asquith as premier, Lloyd- 
George Minister of Munitions and Kitchener Secretary 
of War. Late in 1 9 1 6, however, serious differences arose 
between Lloyd-George and Mr. Asquith over the conduct 
of the war. The Northcliffe press, including the power- 
ful Times, was scathing in its criticism of Mr. Asquith 
and loud in its demand for Lloyd-George as prime min- 
ister. It was evident that the public was of the same 
opinion and in December, 19 16, Mr. Lloyd-George be- 
came prime minister, with Arthur J. Balfour as Secretary 
of State and Bonar Law Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
The conduct of Mr. Asquith, the deposed leader, has been 
admirable. He has consistently refused to hamper the 
new ministry and has given it his loyal support. To se- 
cure greater unity and rapidity of action an inner War 
Cabinet of five members was established, consisting of 
Lloyd-George, Bonar Law, Earl Curzon, Lord Milner 
and Arthur Henderson, leader of the labor party. Earl 
Curzon and Lord Milner have had wide administrative 
experience, the former as Viceroy of India and the latter 
in Egypt and South Africa. The cabinet as thus con- 



344 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

stituted was chiefly made up of Conservatives and with 
a few changes is still (April, 191 8) in power. 

At the outbreak of the war Lord Kitchener was uni- 
versally regarded as the foremost military figure in the 
Empire. His splendid services in India, Egypt and South 
Africa, where he had revealed rare talents for organiza- 
tion, had won hirn the unbounded confidence of the peo- 
ple. Simple, silent, and determined, devoted heart and 
soul to his profession, he had impressed the public im- 
agination, and his name was one to conjure with. Made 
Secretary of War August 5, 19 14, he saw the magnitude 
and character of the coming struggle more clearly than 
any other, and immediately began to organize the coun- 
try for a long and exhausting war. His calls for volun- 
teers met with a magnificent response until by the close 
of 19 15 over five million men had been raised. " Kit- 
chener's Mob " was rapidly transformed into an effective 
fighting machine which has sustained the splendid record 
of the original Expeditionary Force of 140,000 men sent 
to France within twelve days after the declaration of 
war. 

In the meantime the Northcliffe press had been carry- 
ing on a vigorous campaign for universal military serv- 
ice. The public and the ministry were finally converted 
to the policy as more effective and more democratic than 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 345 

the volunteer system, splendid as had been its results. 
At the present time all men between 1 8 and 41, in some 
cases 50, are liable to service. One important feature 
of conscription is that it permits the government to con- 
serve its supply of skilled laborers and to mobilize and 
distribute the manpower of the kingdom in the most effec- 
tive and economical way. 

In bringing about rapid changes in public opinion and 
therefore in public policy Lord Northcliffe, owner of the 
Times and some forty other papers, has been by long odds 
the greatest single force. His rise to the leadership of 
the British press has been sensational and dramatic, and 
these same qualities characterize his journalistic methods. 
Quick in decision, fearless in attack, careless of consist- 
ency and unhampered by convention or professional ethics, 
he has upset all the traditions of conservative British 
journalism. He makes and unmakes ministers and even 
ministries almost at will, and altogether exercises a power 
dangerously close to despotism. Whether on the whole 
he has wielded his power more to the advantage or the 
disadvantage of the country, it is yet too soon to deter- 
mine, but on at least two questions, high explosives and 
conscription, events have long since justified his position. 
But personalities however forceful must have support, 
so let us turn to the part played by the various classes of 



346 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

the nation. Most striking, of course, has been that of 
the women; their magnanimity, loyalty, sacrifice and 
adaptability deserve special praise. Under the resource- 
ful leadership of Mrs. Pankhurst they had been carrying 
on for several years a militant campaign for the removal 
of their legal and political inequalities. They had re- 
sorted to destructive and revolutionary tactics, such as 
picketing Parliament and destroying historic buildings. 
There was developing a hopeless chasm between them and 
the government, supported by an irritated public. With 
the declaration of war, however, all agitation was 
dropped, and Mrs. Pankhurst and her organization placed 
themselves at the service of the government, and have 
been among its most effective agents in mobilizing the 
nation and its resources. 

Not only the " militants " but women of all classes and 
ranks have come to the front and shouldered responsibili- 
ties and duties hitherto undreamed of. Thousands of 
women who had led sheltered lives are now acting as 
clerks, nurses, tram and bus conductors, engine cleaners, 
agricultural workers, motor drivers and in many other 
occupations. In November, 19 17, 1,302,000 women 
were employed on government works of all kinds. They 
have done sixty to seventy per cent, of the machine work 
on munitions and have contributed over 1400 trained me- 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 347 

chanics for the Royal Flying Corps. The women of 
England have shown a loyalty and devotion never sur- 
passed, and it is gratifying to note that the nation has 
recognized the fact and shown its appreciation in the 
Franchise Act of 19 18 which gives the ballot to over six 
million women. The age of eligibility is fixed at 30, 
and the franchise is limited to certain classes, but it is a 
great step forward and is doubtless but the beginning of 
legislation which will eventually bring entire equality. 

If the record of the women of Britain has been highly 
creditable, that of British labor has been equally so. As 
soon as the government had provided against excessive 
war profits on the part of capital, labor cheerfully waived 
for the duration of the war all Trade Union regulations 
which interfered with maximum production. Men have 
worked overtime, relinquished holidays, and have dis- 
played an intelligence and self-sacrifice that are inspiring 
to all believers in democracy. 

While organized labor and the women have perhaps 
played the most striking part in the mobilization of 
Britain, it is proof of the soundness of her body politic 
that no class or section has failed to respond to her need 
with equal enthusiasm. The nobility has more than 
lived up to its traditions in the army and navy, and has 
set an example to the nation in self-sacrifice, service and 



348 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

leadership of ail kinds. Large estates, palaces and coun- 
try homes have been turned over to the government for 
use as hospitals, factories, and barracks, while large and 
generous gifts have been made to the various relief funds. 
The same is true of the universities, technical and pub- 
lic schools. The liberal character of English higher 
education, developing self-reliance and a sense of respon- 
sibility, has proved an excellent training for leadership 
in such a crisis. To-day Oxford and Cambridge are prac- 
tically deserted. Their sons are officering the army and 
navy and serving in hospitals, laboratories and relief 
work. The public schools, like Eton and Rugby, and 
the technical institutions have been no whit behind them 
either in enthusiasm or service. College buildings are 
everywhere being largely devoted to government pur- 
poses, while the faculties have devoted themselves to 
experimentation in government laboratories, to the organ- 
ization of public utilities, and to the counteracting of 
German propaganda in neutral countries. Thus, in the 
face of grave national danger, selfish interests have dis- 
appeared and all have cooperated for the common end. 
A spiritual change has come over England, the proof 
of which is that she has changed her habits. She is by 
instinct individualistic, but to-day her industries are na- 
tionalized, her life socialized, and her people on rations. 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 349 

She is by nature open handed, but to-day millions of peo- 
ple are saving money to enable the government to carry 
on the war. The workingman works overtime and buys 
his sixpenny war stamp, while the society man of the West 
End discovers that life has purpose and is supremely 
worth while. The Englishman is a lover of outdoor 
games and sports, but to-day the Henley regatta, the 
Derby, cricket, football and rowing have made way for 
the more serious business in hand. By temperament the 
Englishman hates system, but to-day he is going at things 
systematically and with a larger intelligence than ever 
before. One striking proof of this is the welfare work 
carried on by Seebohm Rowntree to protect the health 
of a million government employees. Model villages have 
been established and the laws of fatigue studied and ap- 
plied. " Here," says Lloyd-George, " is the greatest at- 
tempt ever made by a government to surround the work- 
ers with safeguards for their health and well-being. And 
it was the making of munitions that brought us to it. It 
was war and shells. It is always true that humanity has 
to descend into hell in order to rise again on the third 
day. It is only through hell that it can achieve its resur- 



rection." 



The one problem with which England has failed to 
grapple successfully is the liquor evil. While some regu- 



35o IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

lations have been enforced in the munitions areas, the 
liquor habit is so ingrained in the public and the liquor 
interests so powerfully entrenched that even Lloyd- 
George has hesitated to attack the problem in anything 
like a drastic or satisfactory manner. 

Of course John Bull has not relinquished his natural 
prerogative of grumbling and fault-finding. He is al- 
ways his own severest critic and is ever asserting that 
things are going to the dogs. The outsider who does not 
know him is likely to take his expressions seriously and 
overlook' the real facts. England continues to grumble. 
She always has and always will, but to-day she is at war 
en masse, is determined to win, and has surprised even 
her admirers by her unity and her achievements. 

Not only has Britain thrown herself into the prosecu- 
tion of the war with energy and determination, but she 
is already giving serious attention to the problems of 
peace and the reconstruction that must follow. Numer- 
ous government commissions have been appointed to in- 
vestigate the various phases of these questions while a 
vigorous public discussion of them has been carried on 
through the press. The Labor Party under the able 
leadership of Mr. Arthur Henderson has been particularly 
active and intelligent. It has reorganized along broad 
liberal lines, has set forth clearly defined war aims and 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 351 

has mapped out a comprehensive plan of reconstruction. 
These plans are ably set forth in the reports of two 
committees of the party, entitled Labor War Aims and 
Labor and the New Social Order. The former report 
was made the basis of the report of the Inter-allied Labor 
Conference held in London in February, 1918. This 
body represented all the pro-war labor and social parties 
among the western European democracies. It reached its 
decisions after a four days' conference by an almost 
unanimous agreement. It made the following important 
demands : 

1) The restoration of conquered territory and the 
right of self-determination for smaller nations, 

2) The establishment of a league of nations as the 
basis of the whole settlement, 

3) No economic war after the war. 

The document meets every issue specifically, whether 
territorial, administrative or economic, and translates 
President Wilson's utterances, into an actual working 
program. The purpose and hopes of the Conference 
were expressed by Mr. Henderson as follows : 

'.? Peace will come when the working class movement 
has discovered by interchange of views the conditions of 
an honorable and democratic peace worthy of the un- 
imaginable sacrifices the people have made, and has 



352 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

pressed these terms upon the governments with the reso- 
lute declaration that peace must be made on these terms 
and no other." 

After the war the British Labor Party proposes " a 
new social order, based not on fighting but on fraternity, 
not on competitive struggle for the means of bare life, 
but on a deliberately planned cooperation in production 
and distribution for the benefit of all who participate by 
hand or by brain — not on the utmost possible inequality 
of riches but on a systematic approach towards a healthy 
equality of material circumstances for every person born 
into the world, — not on an enforced dominion over sub- 
ject nations, subject races, subject colonies, subject classes 
or a subject sect, but in industry as well as government, 
on that equal freedom, that general consciousness of con- 
sent, and that widest possible participation in power, both 
economic and political, which is characteristic of democ- 
racy. 

" The four pillars of the house that we propose to 
erect resting upon the common foundation of the demo- 
cratic control of society in all its activities, may be termed : 

" a) The universal enforcement of the national mini- 
mum wage, 

" b) The democratic control of industry, 

" c) The Revolution in national finance, 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 353 

" d) The surplus wealth for the common good. 

" One of the main aims of the party is to secure for 
every producer his (or her) full share of those fruits 
(of industry) and to insure the most equitable distribu- 
tion of the nation's wealth that may be possible, on the 
basis of the common ownership of land and capital and 
the democratic control of all the activities of society." 

The report states the attitude of the party toward the 
rest of the Empire as follows: " What we look for, be- 
sides a constant progress in democratic self-government 
of every part of the Britannic alliance, and especially in 
India, is a continuous participation of the ministers of 
the Dominions, of India, and eventually of other depend- 
encies (perhaps by means of their own ministers specially 
resident in London for this purpose) in the most con- 
fidential deliberations of the Cabinet, so far as foreign 
policy and imperial affairs are concerned; and the annual 
assembly of an Imperial Council, representing all con- 
stituents of the Britannic alliance and all parties in their 
local legislatures, which should discuss all matters of 
common interest, but only in order to make recommenda- 
tions for the simultaneous consideration of the various 
autonomous local legislatures of what should increasingly 
take the constitutional form of an alliance of free na- 



tions." 



354 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

The Labor Party's voting strength has been greatly in- 
creased by the recent extension of the franchise and by 
the opening of its ranks to brain workers. The National 
Union of Teachers and the Assistant Masters' Associa- 
tion are considering amalgamation with it and it seems 
altogether likely that in view of its strength, solidarity 
and definiteness of aim it will prove a highly important 
factor in the work of readjustment after the war. 

Already its influence has been seen in the Education 
Bill now before Parliament. At the beginning of the 
war interest in education had been aroused as never be- 
fore partly by the revelation of defects in the existing sys- 
tems and partly by the splendid response and assumption 
of leadership on the part of the graduates of all educa- 
tional institutions. The public became convinced that the 
future of the country was closely bound up with educa- 
tion, a practical educator, Mr. Fisher, was appointed 
Minister of Education, and the last budget for educa- 
tional purposes was increased by eighteen million pounds. 

The Education Bill introduced by Mr. Fisher provides 
for a national system of education which shall conserve 
the physical and intellectual strength of the nation. 
Schools for training in motherhood are to be subsidized 
by the government and day nurseries established for chil- 
dren between two and six. The elementary schools are 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 355 

to be less bookish and more practical, and must be at- 
tended until the close of the fourteenth year. Between 
fourteen and eighteen, compulsory attendance for at least 
eight hours a week between 8 A. M. and 7 P. M. is provided 
for in what are known as continuation schools. The 
work of the continuation schools is not to be vocational 
but is to be devoted to general education and healthful 
recreation. The aim is to avoid specialization and to 
prepare for citizenship. " If, in our reforms," runs the 
Bill, " we fix our eyes only on material ends, we may 
foster among ourselves the very spirit against which 
we are fighting to-day." The proposed curriculum will 
deal " with the capacities and ideals of mankind as ex- 
pressed in literature and art, with its achievements and 
ambitions as recorded in history and with the nature and 
laws of the world as interpreted by science, philosophy 
and religion." The lower secondary schools therefore 
will be devoted to languages, history, science, mathematics 
and geography, with some economics and politics, while 
the advanced courses will afford opportunity for special- 
ization. 

The Bill does not deal with the position of teachers, 
but the war has greatly improved both their status and 
their salaries, and a real career of dignity and influence 
is now open to them. The Bill has the support of all 



356 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

parties and will undoubtedly become law. Together with 
the electoral reform it forms a basis for the realization 
of the hopes of democracy. The one gives freedom and 
power and the other, the training and intelligence neces- 
sary for an appreciation of the responsibilities attached 
to power. 

Having thus seen the splendid role played by the 
mother country in the Great War let us now turn and 
examine the part played by other members of the Em- 
pire. Australia is the most homogeneous of all the self- 
governing colonies of the Empire, for ninety-seven per 
cent, of its population is of British blood. It was nat- 
ural therefore that in spite of the distance from the home 
country, its people should feel that British cause was 
their cause. This feeling was promptly expressed by 
Premier Fisher, who declared, " We shall stand with the 
Empire to the last man and with the last penny." This 
pledge, it is scarcely necessary to add, has been loyally 
carried out. 

Australia has been able to render unusually effective 
aid because it had a small fleet fully equipped and be- 
cause of the Defense Act of 19 10 in which she had 
adopted universal military training. The virtue of this 
act lay in its recognition of the duty of all citizens to 
share in defense as part of the duties of citizenship. It 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 357 

provided for their training from the ages of 12 to 26, 
first as part of their school education and afterwards for 
brief periods of each year. Australia, therefore, had a 
considerable body of trained men and officers which after 
a brief preliminary training was sent as an expeditionary 
force to Egypt as early as November, 19 14. It was in 
the Gallipoli campaign, however, that the Australians 
won undying fame by their gallantry in attack and steadi- 
ness under long continued shell fire. One of the splendid 
achievements of the war was the taking of Lone Pine 
Trenches by the First Infantry Brigade after fifty hours 
of bloody fighting underground. 

The small Australian navy saved Australia from at- 
tack by the German Pacific Squadron and it was the battle 
cruiser Australia which destroyed the raider Emden. 
By October, 19 14, Australian and New Zealand forces 
escorted by the Australian fleet had conquered Germany's 
Pacific possession, while German warships were driven 
into South American waters where they were sunk off the 
Falkland Islands by the British fleet. 

The outstanding figure of the war in Australia is Wil- 
liam H. Hughes, who has risen from sheep herder and 
ditcher to the position of premier, and is undoubtedly one 
of the ablest leaders in the world of labor to-day. It 
was largely through his efforts that the social and labor 



358 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

legislation for which Australia is famed was brought 
about. Early in the war he visited Canada and Great 
Britain and attracted great attention by his vigorous de- 
mand for the further consolidation of the Empire, the 
prosecution of the war and the adoption of conscription. 
" The British Empire," he declared, " ought to be an 
organized Empire, organized for trade, industry, eco- 
nomic justice, national defense, preservation of the 
world's peace and for the protection of the weak against 
the strong." 

Hughes attended the Economic Conference of the Al- 
lied Powers in June, 191 6, where he favored the estab- 
lishment of an economic union against Germany after 
the war. Plans were laid for such a policy, but they 
have since been repudiated by President Wilson, a large 
part of English public opinion, and the English Labor 
Party. 

Lloyd-George said that no speeches of modern times 
have made a deeper impression upon the British public 
than did those of Hughes, which brought him the offer 
of a seat in Parliament. The Labor Party in Australia, 
however, felt that he had been hobnobbing with conserva- 
tives. He lost much of his following, and the party 
finally repudiated him on the question of conscription. 
This measure has been twice defeated in popular referen- 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 359 

dums, but the Opposition has been unable to form a gov- 
ernment, and Hughes has remained premier, with a 
Coalition Cabinet. 

While in England Hughes made passionate appeals 
for a voice on the part of the Dominions in the determina- 
tion of the Empire's foreign policy. Premier Massey of 
New Zealand has voiced the same sentiment. The two 
countries are thoroughly loyal and have proved their 
loyalty by giving freely of men and money, but they 
desire and deserve not only the duties, but the privileges 
of complete imperial citizenship. 

Like Australia, Canada has asked for a voice in im- 
perial affairs but, though there has been a vigorous growth 
of national feeling of late years, it has by no means 
diminished her loyalty to the Empire. When the pres- 
ent war came public opinion was enthusiastic for partici- 
pation, and the Toronto Globe's declaration " When 
Britain is at war Canada is at war " won the approval of 
both the Conservative and Liberal parties. Party strife 
was at once suspended and Premier Borden's statement 
that " Canada speaks with one voice. . . . We stand 
shoulder to shoulder with the mother country " was 
warmly seconded by his great political rival, Sir Wilfrid 
Laurier, leader of the Liberal party and foremost orator 
of the Dominion. 



3 6o IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Canada was fortunate in having as Minister of Militia 
Sir Sam Hughes, a veteran of the Boer War and a man 
of great energy and blunt honesty. Within three weeks 
32,000 men were in camp and Valcartier had been trans- 
formed from a small village into a large, well-equipped 
military camp. By September 24 this force was on its 
way to England, and after four months' training these 
were sent to the front to take a gallant part in the second 
battle of Ypres. 1 

The government decided that Canada's total contri- 
bution of men should be 500,000 men and most of these 
were raised by. voluntary enlistment. All parts of the 
country responded with enthusiasm save the French-speak- 
ing province of Quebec, which, while it contains about one 
quarter of the total population of Canada, contributed 
less than one twenty-fifth of the total number of volun- 
teers. Laurier, himself a French Canadian, made re- 
cruiting speeches all through Quebec, trying to arouse 
enthusiasm for the imperial cause. His efforts were 
largely counteracted, however, by Bourassa, leader of the 
Nationalists, who openly discouraged enlistments and 
maintained that " Canada, an irresponsible dependency 
of Great Britain, has no moral or constitutional obliga- 

1 The deeds of this first Canadian contingent have been well told in the 
story of " Private Peat." 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 361 

tions and no immediate interest in the present conflict " 
and that " it is the duty of England to defend Canada, 
not that of Canada to defend England. In protecting 
the territory and commerce of the colonies Great Britain 
ensures her own subsistence. " That such short-sighted 
arguments should have won favor can be explained only 
by the irritation of Quebec over the " bi-lingual ques- 
tion " 1 and by the extreme isolation and provincialism 
of the French Canadians. Settled by pre-revolutionary 
France and unmoved by the forces which brought about 
the Revolution, they have been alienated from the France 
of to-day by her disestablishment of the Catholic Church 
and by the liberal character of French thought. From 
their English neighbors, on the other hand, they are sep- 
arated by differences of race, religion, language and tra- 
ditions. Thus they have lived in a world of their own, 
self-centered, self-absorbed, intensely jealous of their 
national integrity, and unmoved by the great currents of 
thought and politics which have affected the rest of the 
world. To them the war is remote, they have no direct 
interest in it and no sense of imperial responsibility. 

By 19 17 it became evident that conscription would have 
to be resorted to if Canada's contingent was to be kept up 
to full strength. This was deemed necessary not only be- 

1 See pp. 307-8. 



362 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

cause of the attitude of Quebec, but also because of the 
injustice of the voluntary system, splendid as had been its 
results. Laurier and many of the Liberals insisted that 
such an important measure should be decided only by the 
country and advocated a referendum. Though Sir 
Robert Borden had got a Conscription Bill through the 
House, and had won the cooperation of numerous promi- 
nent Liberals in the formation of a " win-the-war " coali- 
tion cabinet, he nevertheless finally consented to submit 
the question to the country in December, 19 17. For this 
election the ballot was given to all the soldiers and to 
women who were nurses in the war, or wives, widows, 
mothers and sisters (if over 21) of enlisted men. On 
the other hand, the suffrage was denied to those who had 
religious scruples against fighting and to all citizens born 
in enemy countries naturalized since 19 12. 

All realized that Canada was facing a grave crisis 
and that much was at stake. The election was not a 
contest between parties, for a large part of the Liberals, 
backed by the powerful Toronto Globe, supported the 
government measure. Women took an active part, for 
the most part on the Union side. The country rendered 
its decision, in a serious and resolute temper, overwhelm- 
ingly in favor of conscription. So overwhelming, in fact, 
that even if no women had been enfranchised and no 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 363 

aliens disfranchised the Union government would have 
been sustained. 

Since the election there has been a good deal of violent 
writing in Quebec, with threats of resistance and separ- 
ation, but it is likely that little will come of it. Laurier 
has declared thajt Quebec will submit to the will of the 
country, while even Bourassa regards secession as imprac- 
ticable. Moderate counsels are prevailing on both sides, 
and, as ex-President Taft has said, " England's justice 
will retain for her a loyalty that a less equitable policy 
would have lost." 

A striking example of the loyalty which such equitable 
treatment has already inspired is seen in the case of South 
Africa. At the beginning of the war there was a rather 
widespread fear that South Africa would be disloyal or 
at least prevented from rendering effective aid to the 
Empire by internal strife. This fear was based on the 
prevalence of industrial unrest as revealed in strikes, and 
on the supposition that the Boers still cherished resent- 
ment against their late conquerors. 

On September 10, however, the Dutch premier, Louis 
Botha, pledged his loyalty and on September 13, the 
Union Parliament, controlled by the Dutch, confirmed 
Botha's assurance that South Africa would support the 
Empire. In spite of the proximity of German posses- 



364 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

sions, British troops were immediately withdrawn and 
defense left to home forces. A few isolated revolts were 
easily and promptly suppressed and the German colonies 
in S. W. Africa and S. E. Africa were conquered, the 
former at a cost of 16,000,000 pounds by an army com- 
manded by General Botha and the latter by a force led 
by General Smuts. South Africa has also sent an ex- 
peditionary force overseas. By the close of 19 16 there 
were 60,000 South African troops in the various fields 
and 10,000 Kaffirs were being sent to France to work at 
the harbors. 

The loyalty and activity of South Africa is due to two 
men, Louis Botha and General Smuts, both of whom 
fought against Britain in the Boer War of 1899. Botha 
as commander in chief made a gallant struggle. of two 
and a half years (1 899-1902), but when the war was 
over he accepted the situation without bitterness. When 
the Transvaal was given self-government in 1906 he 
became the first prime minister, and later the first prime 
minister of the Union. " If every public man in South 
Africa," he said, cc has to go about with his past on his 
back, then all I can say is God help South Africa. 
Who has not made mistakes? We must start with a 
clean sheet. The extremists on both sides are the diffi- 
culty and danger. They keep uppermost the spirit of 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 365 

enmity and suspicion. That is what we have to battle 
against, else we never shall secure harmony between the 
two races, and without harmony, South Africa cannot 
progress." He sternly denounced as treason the rebel- 
lion of 1904. " It can only mean the total destruction of 
our people," he said. Botha led the force to put it down, 
a force made up largely of men of Dutch ancestry. The 
reasons why it did not assume larger proportions was the 
loyalty of Botha and the generous policy of Britain in 
granting self-government in 1906. 

This same largeness of spirit characterized Botha's 
conquest of Southwest Africa. He refused to shoot the 
German troops in defensive positions, saying, " We shall 
have to live with these people in the years to come." His 
terms to them were as generous as those of Grant to Lee 
at Appomattox and it was through him that German 
Southwest Africa was made a province of the Union. It 
is pleasant to add that the tactful, sympathetic, tolerant 
statesman is free from vulgar ambition, has great charm 
and personal magnetism and is greatly beloved by the 
people. 

If Louis Botha is the dominant personality of South 
Africa, his life long friend and co-worker, General Smuts, 
is the dominant brain. He gained a high reputation for 
scholarship at Cambridge and has made a brilliant record 



366 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

as a lawyer. Though he fought against England in the 
Boer War, his reasonable attitude was an important fac- 
tor in the peace negotiations that followed. He became a 
member of Botha's Cabinet in 1907 and in the convention 
for the formation of the South African Union in 1909, 
he overcame so many deadlocks that he has been called 
the Alexander Hamilton of South Africa. 

In the present war he has rendered distinguished ser- 
vice as Minister of Defense and as commander of the 
force which conquered German East Africa. He is also 
the member of the Imperial War Cabinet for South 
Africa. In England he has attracted much attention by 
his forceful personality and his vigorously expressed 
views on the war and Imperial Federation. 

Guided by broadminded statesmen like Botha and 
Smuts, South Africa seems likely, not only to have a happy 
and prosperous future, but to become an important factor 
in the settlement of Imperial problems. 

If the response of South Africa has been unexpected, 
that of India has perhaps been even more so. For here 
we have a people, not only alien in race, creed and lan- 
guage, but too backward in civilization to be granted any 
large measure of self-government, a people whose tradi- 
tions, institutional experience, and mental bias combine to 
make them inappreciative of Western ideals and upon 
whom those ideals had to be imposed by authority. Fur- 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 367 

thermore, the Government in establishing an educational 
system has emphasized higher rather than lower educa- 
tion. The result has been the development of a class 
of intellectuals longing for and waiting upon self-gov- 
ernment long before the masses of the population are 
ready for it. This unfortunate situation had given rise 
to a good deal of discontent and even disturbance just pre- 
vious to the war and had been answered by some conces- 
sions in the Morley-Minto reforms. 

In view of these conditions, India's attitude seemed at 
least problematical, but nowhere has the response been 
more genuine and complete. " Since the outbreak of the 
war," said Lord Hardinge, " all political controversies 
concerning India have been suspended by the educated 
and political classes, with the object of not increasing the 
difficulties of the government's task. In certain cases 
where drastic legislation was necessary, the Indian Gov- 
ernment was able to pass it without the slightest opposi- 
tion in the Imperial Legislative Council, which consists of 
68 members, with an Indian representation of about 30, 
and a government majority of only four. Speeches made 
by Indian members of the Council are striking testimony 
to their sense of increased responsibility. There is no 
doubt of the very considerable political progress of India. 
Even during the five and a half years of my stay there I 



368 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

noticed a vast political development. It is unquestionable 
that this improvement is an outcome of the reformation 
of the councils undertaken by Lord Morley and Lord 
Minto." 

The testimony of natives is equally strong. The 
India, the organ of the Indian National Congress in Lon- 
don, declares that " The Indian princes are with one ac- 
cord offering their services and the resources of their 
states," while A. Y. Ali, a native Indian writer, says, 
" The Minto-Morley reforms were chiefly responsible for 
the desire of India to identify herself with the rest of the 
Empire in the war." 

The intensity and universality of this desire has been 
made manifest in many ways. Individual princes have 
voluntarily contributed large sums of money (the Nizam 
of Hyderabad, 2,000,000 pounds), and several of them 
have combined to furnish a well equipped hospital ship. 
The Viceroy's Council has asked that India be allowed 
to support her own troops in the field, offering 8,000,000 
pounds annually for the purpose, and has offered to con- 
tribute 100,000,000 pounds to the war debt. 

Of course India's greatest contribution has been in men. 
Not only have there been no revolts, as was predicted, 
but agitation has so entirely ceased that the government 
has been able to largely withdraw British troops for the 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 369 

Western Front. At present there are but 10,000 British 
troops in India, as opposed to 75,000 in August, 19 14. 
India has also given freely of her own sons, the number 
at present (1918) being 325,000 in overseas service. 
Many of these have been furnished by native princes, who 
have led their forces in person. Perhaps the flower of 
the Indian army is the Sikhs from the Punjab, but the 
Gurkahs, Rajputs and Parthians have all done excellent 
service in Mesopotamia, Gallipoli, East Africa and on 
the Western Front. The soldiers came from all varieties 
of faiths, Brahman, Parsee and Mohammedan, and pro- 
vision is made for all forms of worship in the service. 
In spite of the " holy war " proclaimed from Constanti- 
nople, the All Indian Moslem League adopted resolutions 
pledging " the loyal support of the imperial cause by the 
Mussulmans of India." Educated Indians have been 
forbidden the military service because of their political 
activity before the war, but in spite of this, students have 
loudly demanded that they be sent to the front, and, fail- 
ing in this, they have demonstrated their loyalty by the 
organization of hospital and relief units. 

All that India has done is the expression of her loyalty. 
There has been no compulsion or even suggestion from 
the Government for participation. India has herself 
loudly and persistently demanded such participation and 



37o IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

has more than fulfilled the pledge of her 13th National 
Congress of 19 14 that " India would stand by the Em- 
pire at all cases and at all hazards." The complete and 
unhesitating manner in which the pledge has been fulfilled 
constitutes one of the most striking tributes to the justice 
and sympathy of British rule. 

Thus we see that India and the self-governing colonies 
have generously and enthusiastically accepted imperial re- 
sponsibility in the Great War, but at the same time they 
have insisted in unmistakable terms upon a voice in the 
determination of imperial policy. This demand has been 
made within the United Kingdom also and has been re- 
sponded to by the calling (March, 19 17,) of an Imperial 
War Cabinet, composed of the five members of the British 
War Cabinet and representatives from India and the 
Dominions. Its most prominent members were Mr. 
Lloyd-George, Lord Curzon, Lord Milner, Bonar Law, 
Mr. Henderson, General Smuts, and Sir Robert Borden. 
Australia was unable to send a representative. 

The functions and powers of the Cabinet were defined 
by Lord Curzon on February 7 to the House of Lords. 
" The representatives are coming as members, for the 
time being, of the governing body of the British Em- 
pire. This seems to me the greatest step ever taken in 
reorganizing the relations of the Dominions and our- 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 371 

selves on the basis of equality. We have often spoken of 
them as though our own sons and daughters were coming 
to take a seat at the parental table. It seems to me we 
are passing out of the stage of filial relationship into that 
of fraternal union; they have fought in this war, not only 
as sons of England but as citizens of the British Empire. 
The War Cabinet is, for a purpose, being expanded into 
an Imperial Council, and this in the future may give us 
a nucleus around which to form some kind of Imperial 
Constitution." 

The Imperial Cabinet held fourteen sittings and, ac- 
cording to Mr. Lloyd-George, it will meet annually and 
become an accepted part of the British Constitution. 

This body, together with the Imperial Conferences 
which have been held from time to time (the first in 1887 
and the last in 19 17), constitutes the first steps in the solu- 
tion of the problem of Imperial Federation. The Im- 
perial Conference of 19 17 declared that the readjust- 
ment of constitutional relations within the Empire was 
necessary but too complex to be dealt with during the 
war. It committed itself, however, to the view that 
" such readjustment should be based on a full recognition 
of the Dominions as autonomous nations of an Imperial 
Commonwealth," and that effective arrangements should 
be made for continuous consultation with India and the 



372 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

Dominions in all important matters of common Imperial 
concern. 

The development of a plan for taking the five Domin- 
ions into full partnership with the United Kingdom pre- 
sents many difficulties and will constitute one of the most 
complex problems to be settled after the war. 

With the organization described above, and fully 
aroused to the magnitude of the task before it, the Empire 
has thrown itself into the Great War with all the energy 
and determination it possesses. Five million Britons 
have taken the field and have gallantly upheld the tradi- 
tions of the British army. Referring to the efficiency of 
this army, Lord Northcliffe has said: "No one will 
accuse me of failing to criticize the mistakes of the British 
army in the early months. But I want you to know that 
to-day we have the finest fighting-machine in the world. 
It has taken time to build it, but now we have it." 

It must not be forgotten either that British industry 
and British finance have made possible the heroic and sus- 
tained resistance of France and Belgium, while the British 
fleet has been absolutely indispensable in saving the Allies 
from defeat. The navy has kept the seas open to British 
and neutral shipping and has transported thirteen million 
troops, together with the necessary supplies and equip- 
ment. In addition it has seriously reduced Germany's 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 373 

economic vitality by the maintenance of the blockade, and 
it is rapidly overcoming the submarine menace. It is the 
British fleet, too, which makes possible the pouring of 
millions of Americans across the Atlantic, resolved that 
government of, for, and by the people shall not perish 
from the earth. 

But in the midst of the all-absorbing struggle, the 
British have remained true to their traditions as a po- 
litically-minded, politically-gifted race. They have found 
time to recognize and repair the defects in their political 
and social system even while carrying on a death strug- 
gle for its very existence. Furthermore, they have ap- 
proached these problems in a new spirit. Britain is no 
longer content to ' muddle through " as a nation of 
amateurs. She is now applying the results of scientific 
investigation to the solution of her national problems. 
She has recognized the need of a professional spirit and 
her readiness to do so is proof of her ability to profit by 
the experience of the war. Permeated with such a spirit, 
Britain seems likely to achieve a reconciliation of liberty 
and efficiency — an ideal for which nations have long 
striven. 

The full realization of such an ideal can only come in 
times of peace, and peace seems yet far distant. There 
have been numerous " peace drives," which have resulted 



374 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

in Britain's defining her peace terms more and more along 
democratic lines. Her position is now practically iden- 
tical with that of President Wilson in insisting upon the 
self-determination of nations, the sanctity of treaties, the 
elimination of war, and the establishment of a League 
of Peace. To Germany these terms seem absurd and the 
positions of the contending powers appear therefore to 
be irreconcilable. 

The end of the Great War then is not in sight, and the 
tremendous sacrifices already made, and yet to be made, 
fill many with gloom and foreboding. A Japanese states- 
man, Count Okuma, has even said that it spells the suicide 
of Western civilization. But it is well to remember that 
in the midst of the Thirty Years' War ( 1 6 1 8-1 648 ) , the 
most terrible of all the conflicts which have preceded the 
Great War, when Germany lost between one-third and 
one-half of her population, and conditions were so ter- 
rible that men even resorted to cannibalism, there was 
brought forth into the world by the Dutchman, Hugo 
Grotius, the great book, " De Jure Belli ac Pacio." This 
work became the foundation of International Law and 
has exercised a more beneficent influence upon the human 
race than any book of non-sacred origin. Its principles 
have slowly made their way into the mind and practice of 
Western civilization, with the result that the relations be- 



EFFECTS UPON THE EMPIRE 375 

tween states have been gradually humanized, savage, un- 
regulated warfare has given way to regulated warfare, 
and arbitration has steadily grown in favor. To-day 
practically the whole world is fighting to insure that these 
blessings shall not perish at the ruthless dictation of one 
power. 

As International Law had its birth amidst the horrors 
of the Thirty Years' War, so there is being born amidst 
the terrors of the Great War a New Spirit. For not only 
are the members of the British Empire being drawn more 
closely together, but liberal forces the world over are 
being consolidated. England's mission to see that 
" peace on earth shall not depend on the verdict of one 
man " has become a world mission. Internationalism 
and International Law will not only have a rebirth, but 
this New Spirit of cooperation and understanding will 
quicken them into forms more comprehensive and effective 
than any the world has yet known. 

Furthermore, the elemental and titanic character of the 
struggle has swept away the artificial and the superficial. 
Men are again face to face with stern realities and falling 
back upon eternal verities. Once more men are achiev- 
ing self-conquest and self-mastery and knowing what it is 
to lose themselves in the cause. Everywhere spiritual 
forces have been quickened and life has taken on new 



376 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

interest and deeper meaning. Out of the old indi- 
vidualistic, materialistic, tired, blase world is emerging 
a New Religion permeated with a New Spirit. And as 
ever there will come a New Art and a New Literature to 
give them expression in lasting and lovely forms. With 
such results, who can say that the sacrifice and travail of 
the Great War have been in vain? 



CHAPTER XV 

A BALANCING OF ACCOUNTS 

It is possible now, perhaps, to attempt a brief summary 
of the net result, a balancing of accounts. It has been our 
aim to portray the British Empire as it now stands in the 
midst of the Great War, and we have found it possible 
to do this only by a survey, however rapid and superficial, 
of its origin and development. For a descriptive ac- 
count of present facts and present facts only, however 
valuable such an account might be for some purposes, 
would throw no light on the forces that make the Empire 
a living and dynamic thing. It is no mechanical struc- 
ture, no well-planned engine of world-power that can be 
analyzed and explained by external study. It is a politi- 
cal organism, to be understood only by comprehension of 
the motives and aims that have made it possible. 

In 1750 the British Empire as we know it did not exist. 
When the word " empire " was used it signified nothing 
more than " rule " or political independence. It is true 
that in America there were flourishing colonies that oc- 

377 



378 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

casionally engaged the attention of the British Parlia- 
ment, but the real significance of the colonies was prob- 
ably not seen by a dozen men in Britain. Apart from 
America the little ports and bits of coast that flew the 
British flag in various parts of the world meant only two 
things to the average Englishman: from the sentimental 
standpoint they were evidences of a far-flung sea power 
in which one might feel some complacent gratification; 
viewed more practically they were depots of trade. The 
most distant British possessions were regarded purely 
from a British point of view. If they meant an increase 
of British wealth and power they were worth while; if 
otherwise they were a source of irritation, and their 
acquisition and holding was a grievance. Great Britain 
was still an island, and the outside world — Europe, Asia 
and America — was viewed by British statesmen pri- 
marily as a market. Chatham, indeed, had a wider and 
truer vision ; to him Virginians and New Englanders were 
fellow-countrymen, and to him a purely insular statesman- 
ship spelled disaster. But Chatham stood alone. 

A century later the British Empire had come into being. 
Between 1750 and 1850 the American colonies were lost, 
indeed, but in their place had come Canada, Australia, 
New Zealand, South Africa and India, and a colonial 
policy was beginning to take shape. Colonies inhabited 



A BALANCING OF ACCOUNTS 379 

largely by Europeans were being given self-government; 
others were classed as Crown Colonies and were governed 
by officials appointed in London and responsible to the 
British government; concerning the nature and destiny 
of the whole incoherent and widely scattered mass of 
British possessions there was much confused thinking and 
little clear vision, but the Empire was in being. 

At the opening of the war the British possessions in- 
cluded over eleven million square miles of territory, in- 
habited by about four hundred millions of people. Of 
this vast population over three hundred millions lived in 
India; one quarter of the rest were Asiatic, African or 
Australasian natives of all stages of development, and 
the sixty or seventy million white British subjects, the 
" dominant race," were scattered over the five continents 
and the seven seas. The government of the Empire 
rested mainly with the Imperial Parliament, i. e., the 
Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and 
Ireland, though in the case of the greater dependencies 
this power was exercised more in the way of oversight 
than in anything like actual administration. The self- 
governing colonies, whose visible tie to the mother islands 
consisted solely in the British name, the British flag, the 
Governors-General and the right of judicial appeal to the 
Privy Council, were unrepresented at Westminster, un- 



3 8o IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

taxed except by themselves, under no obligation to con- 
tribute a dollar or a man to imperial service, free in all 
respects to govern themselves as they pleased. In the 
territories known as British the student of politics might 
find every form of government known to man, from des- 
potism to complete democracy, with more varieties of 
race and color than were ever ruled by Alexander and 
Cgesar combined. Nothing looser, less organized, more 
heterogeneous had ever been devised by the human mind 
than the British Empire as it stood in 19 14. 

These are the external facts, and they represent the . 
Empire as it looked to an outsider or to a student of sta- 
tistics. Against it was hurled in August, 19 14, the full 
weight of its exact antithesis, an Empire organized to the 
minutest details, highly centralized, its immense resources 
capable of rapid and perfect mobilization at the will of 
its rulers, its faith based not on democracy or individual 
liberty but on the sanctity of the State. Kindred in race 
and language, Imperial Germany and Imperial England 
were utterly unlike in both form and spirit. The one, 
springing from infinitely varied beginnings and guided by 
infinitely varied aims, clung proudly to her tradition as 
the guardian of liberty and calmly accepted variety as 
normal; the other, created by the Hohenzollerns, in- 
spired by one aim throughout, has worked steadily for 



A BALANCING OF ACCOUNTS 381 

homogeneity and organized efficiency. In immediately 
available fighting strength Germany was incomparably 
the superior. No one indeed doubted the vast potential 
strength of Britain. But the British power and resources 
were scattered, unorganized, only to be mobilized slowly 
and with infinite difficulty. The fleet was ready for ac- 
tion and was to prove its incalculable value in the emer- 
gency; but naval power is essentially police power, indis- 
pensable in keeping safe the sea highways but useful 
primarily in defense and in transport. It remained to be 
seen whether the land power of the Empire was able to 
meet the unexpected test, whether the little regular army 
of Britain and the military force of her continental allies 
could prevent the immediate triumph of the invaders, 
whether after all the ties that held the Empire together 
might not snap under the strain. 

What Britain needed above all was time, and this was 
provided by the fact that Germany, instead of concen- 
trating her strength, dared to defy Russia and France at 
the same moment as she threw down the gauntlet to Eng- 
land by the attack on Belgium. The unexpected speed of 
Russia's mobilization, the amazing courage and constancy 
of the Belgians and the French, and the heroic self-sacri- 
fice of the first British Expeditionary Force, gave the 
Allies a respite and weakened the paralyzing effect of that 



382 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

terrible first blow. The German invasion was stopped 
and held, and there began the long war of the trenches. 
It was Britain's opportunity, and as the months passed 
Britain's enemies made a disconcerting discovery. Their 
belief in her weakness was based on logic and on history; 
but it had failed to take into account a spiritual move- 
ment which was in truth not only a new phenomenon in 
political experience but one essentially unintelligible to the 
Prussian mind. 

Two generations before, as the nineteenth century 
passed into and through its third quarter, as Prussia was 
welding with successive hammer-strokes the new Ger- 
many, as France was trying and discarding her second 
venture in Bonapartism, as Italy was at last achieving 
unity, a momentous change was coming over the British 
Empire. It was gradual, not to be dated with any exact- 
ness, but it was very real, — the development of self-con- 
sciousness. In our survey of the self-governing colonies 
we have used the term " imperial patriotism." But it 
must be remembered that it was a term that had little 
meaning to the Canada of 1840 or the Australia of 1850. 
It was a sentiment of slow growth because the fact on 
which it came to be based was only slowly realized. In 
the colonies of the early nineteenth century there was 
love of England, the love of the exile for his mother land, 



A BALANCING OF ACCOUNTS 383 

and there was love of the new home. But not at once 
were the two loves merged into one. Then slowly, bit 
by bit, a new understanding of the situation, a new sense 
of mingled pride and responsibility that was by no means 
confined to the British islands, arose and grew rapidly 
in clearness and intensity. It was expressed in Dilke's 
"Greater Britain" (1868), in Seeley's "Expansion of 
England" (1883), in the writings of Rudyard Kipling, 
and in numberless stories, poems, and books critical and 
descriptive that were eagerly read by Britons in Mel- 
bourne and Auckland, in Calcutta and Bombay, in Lon- 
don and Edinburgh, in Toronto and Winnipeg. To 
unity of language, tradition, institutions and attitude to 
life was added by imperceptible degrees unity of national 
sentiment, a unity so obviously clashing with the facts of 
geography and with previous experience yet so actual and 
compelling that its realization brought a glow of enthusi- 
asm. The riddle of Britain's destiny seemed answered. 
Tremendous possibilities dazzled the eyes of Englishmen, 
and the " weary Titan " staggering under the " too vast 
orb of her fate " suddenly found the years and burden 
falling away and youth coming again. The sea was still 
an enclosing wall, but the metaphor was no longer ade- 
quate: the sea was now a highway to the broad and 
friendly dominions beyond the horizon, and the Empire 



384 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

was no longer a burden and a perplexity but an immense 
source of hope. 

In the face of this new imperial consciousness legal and 
political complexities, external inconsistencies, racial di- 
versities and unsettled problems sank into insignificance. 
Indeed they became a source of a curious pride. Unity 
based on centralized organization seemed a commonplace 
and mechanical thing as compared with unity based on 
sentiment, on common traditions, on common aims, on 
u liberty, equality and fraternity." The question as to 
whether such a unity based on " imponderables " would 
stand the test of time and shock was one that few Britons 
the world over seriously asked. Thinkers of other na- 
tions shook their heads and ridiculed the so-called Em- 
pire as a house of cards. But the war came, and Britain's 
amazed enemies saw her heterogeneous empire stiffen and 
draw together, alive, eager, unified and fired by a patriot- 
ism as vital and impenetrable as though there were no 
seas. The bonds of sentiment became bonds of living 
steel. 

That the Empire, quite apart from the war, has prob- 
lems to solve, perils to meet and endure, no one doubts. 
It is an anomaly, of course, that the colonies may be in- 
volved in wars without their knowledge or consent, that 
the British Islands — England, Ireland, Scotland and 



A BALANCING OF ACCOUNTS 385 

Wales - — bear alone the weight of the imperial navy, 
that the Crown colonies and protectorates and all matters 
connected with the Empire as a whole are the concern of 
the British Parliament and the British Parliament only. 
But anomalies have never seriously worried the British 
mind. When war came no Canadian or Australian urged 
that they had never been consulted regarding the guaran- 
tee of Belgium's neutrality or the Entente with France. 
The situation does indeed suggest a danger. But when 
this and other problems become sufficiently acute to be a 
positive source of irritation they will be met and solved, 
wisely or unwisely: if wisely, the settlement will stand, if 
unwisely it will be amended, as in the past. 

To the Briton the world is a practical one, withal. In 
the last hundred years or so he has become broader in 
outlook, more human and cosmopolitan in his sympa- 
thies, and he has lost much of the old arrogance, the old 
insularity, the old stubbornness of prejudice. He is still 
cautious, still suspicious of abstract or academic generali- 
zations, still conservative, still primarily interested in to- 
day's problems and to-day's work. Yet the practical 
British soul is stirred nevertheless in these days by a 
mighty fact and a dazzling vision. For every son of the 
Empire feels himself one of a great brotherhood, one and 
indivisible, based on ideals fundamentally identical with 



386 IMPERIAL BRITAIN 

those of the Declaration of Independence and the Gettys- 
burg speech. 

The dispassionate observer who might find himself 
unable to understand or to evaluate the element of im- 
perial patriotism might still see three clear reasons for 
British success in empire-building. One is the Empire's 
elasticity, its refusal to force human nature into a rigid 
mold, its abandonment of the policy of centralization, re- 
pression, uniformity, — in other words, its steadily in- 
creasing comprehension of the meaning and power of 
liberty. Another is an inborn capacity for administra- 
tion, — a capacity of which India and Egypt are sufficient 
proofs. The third is the application of a principle that 
may yet result in the dawn of a new era of peace and 
good-will on earth, — the discovery that political bound- 
aries, political forms, systems of law, are none of them 
of final and sacred consequence, that an infinite variety 
of institutions may be consistent with unity of spirit and 
harmony of action, that sympathy and good fellowship 
matter more than any external form. When the world 
shall have discovered this it will be a new world. The 
union of the nations that make up what the world calls 
the British Empire is a prophecy of a wider union, not 
bound by rigid forms but by common humanity, which is 
already more than a dream. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 

Becker, Beginnings of the American People, 19 15. 

Brooks, Sidney, Aspects of the Irish Question, 1912. 

Brown, Genesis of the United States. 

Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, 1900. 

Canadian Annual Review, ed. J. C. Hopkins, 1901, seq. 

Chailley, Administrative Problems of British India, 1910 

Cromer, Earl of, Modern Egypt, 191 1. 

Currey, C. H., British Colonial Policy, 19 16. 

Egerton, H. E., Short History of British Colonial Policy, 1897. 

Egerton and Grant, Canadian Constitutional Development, shown 
by selected Speeches and Despatches, 1907. 

Fraser, Lovat, India under Curzon and After, 191 1. 

Gerard, My Four Years in Germany, 191 8. 

Gibbons, H. A., The New Map of Europe, 1916. 

Gleason, Arthur, Inside the British Isles, 191 7. 

Green, Alice Stopford, Irish Nationality, 191 1. 

Green, J. R., Short History of the English People. 

Hensman, Cecil Rhodes, 1902. 

Houston, William, Documents illustrative of the Canadian Con- 
stitution, 1 89 1. 

Hughes, David Livingstone (in English Men of Action series). 

Hunter, Sir W. W., History of British India, vol. 1, 1899. 
Brief History of the Indian Peoples, 1903. 
(editor) Rulers of India series. 

Jenks, History of the Australasian Colonies, 1896. 

Keltie, J. S., The Partition of Africa, 1893. 

387 



3 88 SUGGESTIONS FOR READINGS 

Laut, Agnes, The Canadian Commonwealth, 1915. 

The Conquest of the Great North West, 1908. 
Lecky, W. E. H., The American Revolution. 
Lloyd, H. D., Newest England, 1900. 
Low, Sidney, Egypt in Transition, 19 14. 

Lucas, Sir C. P., Historical Geography of the British Colonies, 
1888-1916. 

The British Empire, 1915. 
Lyall, Sir Alfred, Rise of British Dominion in India. 

Warren Hastings. 
Milner, Lord, England in Egypt, 1903. 

Osgood, American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century, 1904. 
Plunkett, Sir Horace, Ireland in the New Century, 1904. 
Quinn, Russell, etc. The Irish Home Rule Convention, 19 18. 
Redmond, John, Home Rule, 1909. 
Roberts, Lord, Forty-one years in India, 1897. 
Roberts, C. G. D., History of Canada, 1897. 
Reeves, W. P., State Experiments in Australia and New Zea- 
land, 1902. 
Round Table Quarterly, for comment and discussion on current 

topics. 
Seeley, J. R., The Expansion of England, 1883. 
Scholefleld, New Zealand in Evolution, 1904. 
Seymour, The Diplomatic Background of the War, 1916. 
Siegfried, Democracy in New Zealand, 1914. 
Steevens, G. W., Egypt in 1898. 

With Kitchener to Khartoum, 19 15. 
Steevens, G. W., In India, 1899. 
Theal, G. M., South Africa (in Story of the Nations series), 

1900. 
Traill, H. D., England, Egypt, and the Sudan, 1899. 
Trevelyan, Sir G. O., The American Revolution, 1899-19 12. 
Van Tyne, C. H., The American Revolution. 1905. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR READINGS 389 

Wicks, Pembroke, The Truth about Home Rule, 191 3. 
Willson, Beckles, The Great Company (a history of the Hudson's 

Bay Company), 1899. 
Worsfold, Basil, The Union of South Africa, 19 12. 
The Redemption of Egypt, 1899. 



INDEX 



Afghanistan, 266-271. 

Africa, Union of South, 240. 

Albuquerque, 40-2. 

Alexandria, bombardment of, 285. 
American colonies, 67-71 ; con- 
trasted with New France, 74; 
westward expansion checked by 
French, 79-81 ; characteristics in 
1760, 109-112; transformation of, 
113-15; drift towards revolution, 
115-128; declare independence, 
129; acknowledge as independent 
states, 134. 

American Revolution, effect of on 
British policy, 203-6. 

Arabi Pasha, 281-3. 

Arcot, 91, 93, 95-8. 

Armada, Invincible, 28-31. 

Australia, discovered, 143 ; colon- 
ized, 147 sq. ; united, 226 ; free 
from foreign menace, 137, 159; 
in the Great War, 356-7. 

Awakening, Great, 112-13. 

Baring, Evelyn, 286-9, 2 95- 

Bechuanas, 180, 243-4. 

Bengal, 99-107. 

Bentinck, Lord William, 252-3. 

Black Hole of Calcutta, 102. 

Boers, 163-4, 168-9, 172-3, 181-2, 

184-6, 237-9. 
Borden, Sir Robert, 359, 362. 
Boston Tea Party, 125. 
Botany Bay, 142, 151, 154, 157. 
Botha, General, 246, 363-5. 
British North America Act, 211. 
Bushrangers, 158. 



Cabot, John, 44. 

Caisse de la Dette, 278-9. 

Calcutta, 1 61-3. 

Calicut, 39. 

Canada under British rule, 193 sq. ; 
given autonomy, 210-n; confed- 
erated, 211, 218; government of, 
21 8-20; in Great War, 359-63. 

Cape of Good Hope, discovered, 
38; settled by Dutch, 160-1; ac- 
quired by England, 162; joins 
Union of South Africa, 240. 

Carnatic, 90-3. 

Cartier, Jacques, 71-2, 192. 

Casement, Roger, 328. 

Catholic Emancipation, 317-19. 

Cawnpore, 256-7. 

Chaka, 169-70. 

Champlain, 72-4. 

Chartered Company of South Af- 
rica, 237, 244-5. 

Chatham, Lord, 81, 117, 123, 126- 
8, 378. 

Clark, George Rogers, 133. 

Clive, Robert, 87-107. 

Colbert, 59, 61, 75-6. 

Constitutional Act, 202-3, 240. 

Cook, James, 138-146. 

Cromer, Earl of, 286-9. 

Dalhousie, Marquis of, 253-4. 

Deccan, 89-90, 92. 

Declaration of Independence, 145. 

Declaratory Act, 123. 

Delta Barrage, 288-291. 

Democracy in Australasia, 223-236. 

Diaz, Bartholomew, 38. 



391 



392 



INDEX 



Dilke, Sir Charles, 136. 

Drake, Francis, 14, 24-8. 

Dupleix, 90, 92-6. 

D' Urban, Sir Benjamin, 167-8. 

Durham, Earl of, 209. 

Dutch East India Company, 46-8. 

East India Company, 33; instruc- 
tions to factors, 48-53 ; driven 
from Spice Islands, 56. 

Education Bill of 1918, 354-6. 

Edward I, 6. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 112. 

Egypt, significance of, 275-6, 280; 
under Dual control, 279; under 
British control, 285 sq. ; govern- 
ment of, 286-8; finances of, 287- 
8; irrigation in, 288-91. 

Elizabeth, 9. 

Empire, meaning of, 1-2; prob- 
lems of, 303-6. 

England, New, 67-9. 

English policy, in Asia, 100-101 ; in 
America, 11 5-126; change in, 
251-2, 316. 

Esquimaux, 18. 

Eucken, Rudolf, 336. 

Expansion, characteristics of Brit- 
ish, 83-7. 

Family Compact in Canada, 207- 
8. 

Feudalism in Canada, 193. 

France, rise of, 58-62. 

France, New, 64, 72 ; contrasted 
with English colonies, 74; char- 
acteristics of, 74-7 ; expansion of, 
77-8; conquered by English, 81- 
2. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 114-5, 126. 

Frobisher, Martin, 16-18. 

Frontenac, Count, 75-6. 

Gama, Vasco da, 35, 39. 
Garry, Fort, 216. 



German colonies in Africa, 243. 

German Empire, responsible for 
Great War, contrasted with Brit- 
ish Empire, 380-1. 

Gibraltar, 274-5. 

Gilbert, Humphrey, 19 

Gladstone, 283, 293, 296 

Gold in New South Wales, 156-7; 
in Victoria, 157-8. 

Good Hope, Cape of, discovered, 
38; settled by Dutch, 160-1; ac- 
quired by England, 162; joins 
Union of South Africa, 240. 

Gordon, Charles George, 294, 
296-300, 319-20. 

Grattan, Henry, 317 

Gravelines, 30. 

Great Awakening, 112-3. 

Greenland, 17. 

Grenville, George, 120. 

Grotius, Hugo, 374. 

Hakluyt's Voyages, 16. 

Hastings, Warren, 107, 248-9. 

Havelock, Sir Henry, 257-8. 

Hawkins, John, 21-4. 

Henry II, 1, 2. 

Henry of Navarre, 59, 72. 

Henry the Navigator, 38. 

Himalayas, 89. 

Holland, 46. 

Home Rule for Ireland, 321-6, 329- 

32- 
Howard of Effingham, 29. 
Hudson, Hendrik, 213. 
Hudson's Bay Company, 213-18. 
Hughes, William H., 357-8. 
Hughes, Sir Sam, 359-60. 
Hyderabad, 91-3. 

Imperial consciousness, 382-4. 
Imperial Federation, 220, 222, 

371-2. 
Imperialism, problems of, 303-6. 
Imperial War Cabinet, 370-71. 



INDEX 



India Company, East, 33. 

India, geographical character of, 
89-90; politics in eighteenth cen- 
tury, 90; in nineteenth century, 
250-1 ; problems of, 260-73 '■> 
made Crown Colony, 259; popu- 
lation of, 260-1; in Great War, 
366-70. 

Indian mutiny, 254-9. 

Inquisition, 20. 

International law, 374-5. 

Ireland, discontent of, 304; con- 
quest of, 309-10; faithful to Ca- 
tholicism, 312-13; persecution 
°f» 313-15; grievances of, 314- 
15; Home Rule agitation in, 
321-6; relation to Empire, 321-3. 

Jackson, Port, 15 1-2. 

Kaffirs, 165, 167-9, 176. 

Khartoum, 293, 296-300. 

Khyber Pass, 264. 

Kimberley, 237, 241. 

Kitchener, Lord, 239, 301, 340, 344. 

Kruger, Paul, 238, 242. 

Labor and the War, 347, 350-4. 

Laissez-faire, 146, 231 

Land Question in Ireland, 315-16, 

318-21. 
Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 231-2. 
Lawrence, Henry, 253, 256. 
Lawrence, John (Lord), 253, 256-8, 

269. 
Lichnowsky, Prince, 339. 
Livingstone, David, 163, 177-91, 

246. 

Lloyd-George, 329-30, 340-3, 349- 

Lobengula, 244. 

London Missionary Society, 163, 

165, 175-6. 
Louis XIV, 60-1 ; colonial ambitions 

of, 62. 



Loyalists in America, 117, 

Canada, 202. 
Lucknow, 256-8. 



393 



135; in 



Macarthur, John, 153. 

Macaulay, Lord, 60-1, 90. 

Mackenzie, William Lyon, 207-8. 

Madras, 87, 90, 93. 

Magellan, 43. 

Magna Carta, 5. 

Mahdi, El, 293-7. 

Main, Spanish, 13, 16, 25. 

Manitoba, 212. 

Maories, 228. 

Maroons, 26. 

Massachusetts, 68-9, 126. 

Matabele, 175, 244, 247. 

Mazarin, 59. 

Melbourne, 155-6. 

Mercury Bay, 142. 

Middleton, Sir Henry, 54. 

Mogul Emperors, 90-1. 

Montfort, Simon de, 5. 

Morley-Minto reforms, 367-8. 

Navigation Acts, 11 8-9. 

New Brunswick, 202, 211. 

New England, 67-9. 

Newfoundland, 44. 

New France, 64-5. 

New South Wales, discovered, 142; 
settled by convicts, 151 ; growth 
of » 153-5; given self-government, 
155. 

New Zealand, discovered, 141, 
made British colony, 228; united, 
228; recent legislation in, 232-4. 

Nizam-ul-Mulk, 93. 

Nombre de Dios, 24. 

North, Lord, 145, 198, 200. 

Northcliffe, Lord, 343—5, 

Northwest Frontier of India, 263-5. 

Northwest Passage, 43-45, 213. 

Nova Scotia, 211-12. 



394 



INDEX 



O'Connell, Daniel, 317-19- 

Ontario, province of, 202; rebel- 
lion in, 208-9; given autonomy, 
209-10; member of Dominion of 
Canada, 211. 

Panama, 24, 26. 

Pan-German ambitions in South Af- 
rica, 243. 
Pankhurst, Mrs., 346. 
Parkman, Francis, 65. 
Parnell, Charles Stewart, 320, 324. 
Phillip, Captain Arthur, i49~5 2 - 
Phillip, Port, 155-6. 
Pitt, William, 81, 117, 123, 126-8. 
Plassey, 104-5. 
Plunkett, Sir Horace, 330. 
Port Jackson, 15 1-2. 
Portuguese, 34-44* 54 _ 6> 188. 
Pretoria, 172, 240. 
Princeton College, 113. 
Prussia, 83. 

Quebec, founding of, 71; discon* 
tent of, 195; Act, 198-201; rep- 
resentative government in, 197 ; 
self-governing, 209 ; member of 
confederation, 211; problem of, 
220-2, 307-8 ; attitude to Great 
War, 360-3. 

Raleigh, Walter, 65. 
Rebellion of 1837 in Canada, 208-9. 
Redmond, John, 321, 329, 333. 
Red River Settlement, 216. 
Renaissance, 9, 11. 
Representative government, 3-4. 
Responsible Government in Can- 
ada, 206. 
Rhodes, Cecil, 189, 241-6. 
Rhodesia, 246. 
Richelieu, 59. 
Roberts, Lord, 239. 
Runnymede, 5. 
Russia in Asia, 266-71. 



Saskatchewan, 212. . 

Seeley, Sir John, 383. 

Selkirk, Earl of, 216. 

Sinn Fein, 327-331. 

Slavery, in South Africa, 166. 

Slave Trade, 188-9. 

Smuts, General, 246, 365-6. 

Socialism in Australia and New 

Zealand, 229-35. 
Soudan, 292-302. 
South African Republic, 173, 237, 

240. 
Spain, 10-14, 31; decline of, 57-60. 
Spanish Main, 13, 16. 
Stamp Act, 116, 120-3. 
States-General, at Quebec, 75. 
Suez Canal opened, 276 ; control of 

acquired by England, 277. 
Surat, 54. 

Suraj-u-Dowlah, 102-4. 
Sydney, Lord, 148-9. 
Sydney, city of, 152. 
Sydney, University of, 154. 

Tahiti, 140. 
Tasmania, 155. 
Tauranga, 142. 
Terra Australis, 140. 
Tordesillas, Treaty of, 43. 
Townshend, Charles, 124. 
Transvaal, 172-3, 182, 188, 236-7, 

240. 
Trichinopoly, 94-5. 
Turgot, 146. 
Turks, 36. 

Ulster, 312-13, 324-6. 
Union of South Africa, 240. 

Van Diemen's Land, 155. 
Vasco da Gama, 35, 39. 
Vera Cruz, 21-3. 
Victoria, Colony of, 155. 
Victoria Falls, 189. 
Vincennes, 132-3. 



Vindhya Hills, 89. 
Virginia, 65-7, 86. 

Waitangi, Treaty of, 228. 
Washington, George, 130-1. 
William III, 62-3. 
William II, Emperor, 338. 
Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 45. 



INDEX 



395 



Winnipeg, 216. 

Wolfe, 81. 

Wolseley, Lord, 293, 296-9. 

Women of England, 346-7. 



Zambesi, 183, 186-7. 
Zulus, 170-5. 



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